Out of the Primitive Part 18

Genevieve colored slightly. "You should know Lord Avondale better. If he is at all interested--"

"He is, most decidedly. He dined with us last evening. Laffie Ashton called; so I succeeded in getting the earl away from Dolores. We had a most satisfying little _tete-a-tete_. I led him into explaining everything."

"Everything?" queried Genevieve.

"Yes, everything, my dear. His aloofness since you reached Aden has been due merely to his high sense of honor,--to an absurd but chivalrous agreement with that fellow to not press his suit until after your arrival home. At Aden he had given the man his word--"

"At Aden?" interrupted Genevieve. "How could that be, when Tom left the ship at Port Mozambique?"

"He didn't. It seems that the fellow was aboard all the time, hiding in the steerage or stoke-hole, or somewhere--no doubt to spy on you and Lord Avondale."

Genevieve averted her head and murmured in a half whisper: "He was aboard all that time, and never came up for a breath of air all those smothering days! I remember Lord James speaking of how hot and vile it was down in the forecastle. This explains why he went forward so much!"

"It explains why he did not book pa.s.sage with you from Aden--why he did not hasten to you at Lady Chetwynd's--all because of his chivalrous but mistaken sense of loyalty to that low fellow."

"If you please, Aunt Amice," said Genevieve, in a tone as incisive as it was quiet, "you will remember that I esteem Mr. Blake."

Mrs. Gantry stared over her half-raised lorgnette. She had never before known her niece to be other than the very pattern of docility.

"Well!" she remarked, and, after a little pause; "Fortunately, that absurd agreement is now at an end. The earl intimated that he would call on you this afternoon. I am sure, my dear--"

Of what the lady was sure was left to conjecture. The footman appeared in the hall entrance and announced: "Mr. Brice-Ashton."

Ashton came in, effusive and eager. "My dear Miss Genevieve! I--ah, Mrs. Gantry! Didn't expect to meet you here, such a day as this. Most unexpected--ah--pleasure! _N'est-ce pas?_--No, no! my dear Miss Leslie; keep your seat!"

Genevieve had seemed about to rise, but he quite deftly drew a chair around and sat down close before her. "I simply couldn't wait any longer. I felt I must call to congratulate you over that marvellous escape. It must have been terrible--terrible!"

Genevieve replied with perceptible coldness: "Thank you, Mr. Ashton. I had not expected a call from you."

"'Mr.' Ashton!" he echoed. "Has it come to that?--when we used to make mudpies together! Dolores said that you--"

"Not so fast, Laffie!" called the girl, as she came dancing into the room in her most animated manner. "Don't forget I'm Miss Gantry now."

Ashton continued to address Genevieve, without turning: "I came all the way down from Michamac just to congratulate you--left my bridge!"

"You're too sudden with your congratulations, Laffie," mocked Dolores.

"Genevieve hasn't yet decided whether it's to be the hero or the earl."

"Dolores," admonished her mother. "I told you to leave the room."

"Yes, and forgot to tell me to stay out. It's no use now, is it? Unless you wish me to drag out Laffie for a little _tete-a-tete_ in the conservatory."

"Sit down, dear," said Genevieve.

Mrs. Gantry turned to Ashton with a sudden unbending from hauteur. "My dear Lafayette, I observed your manner yesterday towards that--towards Mr. Blake. Am I right in surmising that you know something with regard to his past?"

"About Blake?" replied Ashton, his usually wide and ardent eyes shifting their glance uneasily from his questioner to Genevieve and towards the outer door.

"About my friend Mr. Blake," said Genevieve.

"You call him a friend?--a fellow like that!" Ashton rashly exclaimed.

"He has proved himself a disinterested friend,--which I cannot say of all with whom I am acquainted."

"Oh, of course, if you feel that way."

"My other friends will remember that he saved my life."

"If only he had been a gentleman!" sighed Mrs. Gantry.

"Yes, Vievie," added Dolores. "Next time any one goes to save you, shoo him off unless he first offers his card."

"Mr. Blake is what many a seeming gentleman is not," said Genevieve, her levelled glance fixed upon Ashton. "Tom Blake is a man, a strong, courageous man!"

"We quite agree with you," ventured Ashton. "He is a man of the type one so frequently sees among firemen and the police."

Mrs. Gantry intervened with quick tact: "Mr. Blake is quite an eminent civil engineer, we understand. As a fellow engineer, you have met him, I dare say--have had dealings with him."

"I?--with him? No--that is--" Ashton stammered and shifted about uneasily under Genevieve's level gaze. "It was only when I was acting as Mr. Leslie's secretary. Blake handed me the bridge plans that he afterwards claimed were lost. I tell you, I had nothing to do with them--nothing! I merely received them from him. That was all. I went away the very next day--resigned my position. I don't know what became of his plans,--nothing whatever! I tell you, the Michamac Bridge--"

"Why, Lame!" giggled Dolores. "What makes you squirm so? You're twitching all over. I thought you'd had enough of the simple life at Michamac to recover from the effects of that corner in oats. You haven't started another corner already, have you?"

"No, I have--I mean, yes--just a few c.o.c.ktails at the club--yes, that's it. So bitter cold, this sleet! You'll understand, Mrs. Gantry--perhaps one too much. Haven't had any since I went back to the bridge last time."

"Then up at Michamac you take it straight?" asked Dolores.

Ashton forced a nervous laugh. "Keep it up, Dodie! You'll make a wit yet." He bent towards Genevieve. "You'll pardon me, won't you, Genevieve?"

The girl raised her fine brows ever so slightly. "'Miss Leslie,' if you please."

"Of course--of course! Just another slip--that last c.o.c.ktail and the sleet. Wet cold always sends it to my head. That about Blake, too--I oughtn't to 've spoken of it after you said he was your friend. It's, of course, your father's affair."

"Then you need say no more about it," said Genevieve with ironical graciousness. He shifted about in his chair, and she caught him deftly.

"Must you be going?--really! Good-day."

He rose uncertainly to his feet, his handsome face flushed, and his full red lower lip twitching.

"I--I had not intended--" he began.

"Good-day!" said Mrs. Gantry with significant emphasis.

"So sorry you must rush off so soon, Laffie," mocked Dolores.

Social training has its value. Ashton pulled himself together, bowed gracefully, and started up the room with easy a.s.surance.

As he neared the doorway, the footman appeared and announced with unction: "The Right Honorable, the Earl of Avondale."

Ashton stopped short, and when the Englishman entered, met him with an effusive greeting: "_Mon Dieu!_ Such a fortunate chance, your lordship!