Miss Million's Maid Part 21

"To MISS SMITH, "c/o Miss Million, "Hotel Cecil."

But inside it begins:

"My Dear Miss Lovelace:--"

And then it goes on:

"I am putting another name on the envelope, because I think that this is how you wish to be addressed for business purposes. I hope you will not be offended, or consider that I am impertinent in what I am going to say."

It sounds like the beginning of some scathing rebuke to the recipient of the letter, doesn't it? But I don't think it's that. The letter goes on:

"Am writing to ask you whether you will allow me the privilege of seeing you somewhere for a few minutes' private conversation? It is on a matter that is of importance."

The last sentence is underlined, and looks most curiosity-rousing in consequence:

"If you would allow me to know when I might see you, and where, I should be very greatly obliged. Believe me,

"Yours very truly, Reginald Brace."

That's the young manager, of course. That's the fair-haired young man who lives next door to us--to where we used to live in Putney; the young man of the garden-hose and of the "rows" with my Aunt Anastasia, and of the bank that looks after Miss Million's money!

Is it about Miss Million's money matters that he wishes to have this "few minutes' private conversation"? Scarcely. He wouldn't come to Miss Million's maid about that.

But what can he want to see me about? "A matter of importance." What can this be?

I can't guess.... For an hour now I have been sitting in Miss Million's room, with Miss Million's new possessions scattered about me, and the scent still heavy in the air of those red carnations sent in by the Honourable--the Disgraceful Jim Burke.

Opposite to the sofa on which I am sitting there hangs an oval mirror in a very twiggly-wiggly gilt frame, wreathed with golden foliage held by a little Cupid, who laughs at me over a plump golden shoulder, and seems to point at my picture in the gla.s.s.

It shows a small, rather prettily built girl in a delicious black frock and white ap.r.o.n, with her white b.u.t.terfly-cap poised pertly on her chestnut hair, and on her face a look of puzzled amus.e.m.e.nt.

It's really mysterious; but I can't make out the mystery. I shall have to wait until I can ask that young man himself what he means by it all.

Now, as to "when and where" I am to see him.

Not here. I am not Miss Million. I can't invite my acquaintances to tea and rattlesnake c.o.c.ktails and gimlets and things in the Cecil lounge.

And I can scarcely ask her to let me have her own sitting-room for the occasion.

Outside the hotel, then. When? For at any moment I am, by rights, at Miss Million's beck and call. Her hair and hands to do; herself to dress three times a day; her new trousseau of lovely garments to organise and to keep dainty and creaseless as if they still shimmered in Bond Street.

I don't like the idea of "slipping out" in the evenings, even if my mistress is going to keep dissipated hours with cobras and sulphur-crested c.o.c.katoos. So--one thing remains to me.

It's all that remains to so many girls as young and as pretty as I am, and as fond of their own way, but in the thrall of domestic service. Oh, sacred right of the British maid-servant! Oh, one oasis in the desert of subjection to another woman's wishes! The "Afternoon Off"!

Next Friday I shall be free again. I must write to Mr. Brace. I must tell him that the "important matter" must wait until then....

But apparently it can't wait.

For even as I was taking up my--or Miss Million's--pen, one of those little chocolate-liveried page-boys tapped at Miss Million's sitting-room door and handed in a card "for Miss Smith."

I took it.... His card?

Mr. Brace's card?

And on it is written in pencil: "May I see you at once? It is urgent!"

Extraordinary!

Well, "urgent" messages can't wait a week! I shall have to see him.

I said to the page-boy: "Show the gentleman up."

I don't know what can be said for a maid who, in her mistress's absence, uses her mistress's own pretty sitting-room to receive her--the maid's--own visitors.

Well, I couldn't help it. Here the situation was forced upon me--I, in my cap and ap.r.o.n, standing on Miss Million's pink hearthrug in front of the fern-filled fireplace, and facing Mr. Brace, very blonde and grave-looking, in his "bank" clothes.

"Will you sit down?" I said, standing myself as if I never meant to depart from that att.i.tude. He didn't sit down.

"I won't keep you, Miss Lovelace," said the young bank manager, in a much more formal tone than I had heard from him before. "But I was obliged to call because, after I had sent off my note to you, I found I was required to leave town on business to-morrow morning early.

Consequently I should only be able to speak to you about the matter which I mentioned in my note if I came at once."

"Oh, yes," I said. "And the important matter was----"

"It's about your friend, Miss Million."

"My mistress," I reminded him, fingering my ap.r.o.n.

The young man looked very uncomfortable.

Being so fair, he reddens easily. He looks much less grown-up and reliable than he had seemed that first morning at the bank. I wonder how this is.

He looked at the ap.r.o.n and said: "Well, if you must call her your mistress--I don't think it's at all--but, never mind that now--about Miss Million."

"Don't tell me all her money's suddenly lost!" I cried in a quick fright.

The manager shook his fair head. "Oh, nothing of that kind. No.

Something almost as difficult to tell you, though. But I felt I had to do it, Miss Lovelace."

His fair face set itself into a sort of conscientious mask. "I turned to you instead of to her because--well, because for obvious reasons you were the one to turn to.

"Miss Million is a young--a young lady who seems at present to have more money than friends. It is natural that, just now, she should be making a number of new acquaintances. It is also natural that she should not always know which of these acquaintances are a wise choice----"

"Oh, I know what you mean," I interposed, for I thought he was going on in that rather sermony style until Million came home. "You're going to warn me that Mr. Burke, whom you met here, isn't a fit person for Mill--for Miss Million to know."

Mr. Brace looked relieved, yet uncomfortable and a little annoyed all at once.

He said: "I don't know that I should have put it in exactly those words, Miss Lovelace."

"No, but that's the gist of it all," I said rather shortly. Men are so roundabout. They take ages hinting at things that can be put into one short sentence. Then they're angry because some woman takes a short cut and translates.