Paddy The Next Best Thing Part 42

"It's only my hair," answered Paddy. "I spend ten minutes on it now instead of two. It's awfully jolly to find you just the same, Doreen.

What a heap we've got to tell each other. Are we going to say in this 'throne-room' or what?"

"Don't you like it? We can sit on the rug by the fire, and no one will come. I told James to say 'not at home.'"

"Is James the overpowering individual who condescended to show me upstairs? I nearly said 'Thank you, sir!' by mistake."

Doreen pulled up two big cosy chairs, and they were soon talking nineteen to the dozen, or rather Paddy twenty to Doreen's ten, with such vigour, that neither of than heard the door open and a light footstep enter. At the sound of a bracelet jingling, however, they looked round in surprise, to find Gwendoline, resplendent in a lovely new spring costume, standing watching them with laughter in her glorious eyes.

"I knew you would be 'not at home,' Doreen," she said, "so I just made Lawrence lend me his latchkey. Don't be vexed. I'm sick of private views, and spring shows and things, and I just wanted awfully to come and see you and Miss Adair."

Doreen sprang up and made room for her eagerly, not noticing Paddy's sudden stiffness.

"Come along," she exclaimed, "I'm delighted to see you. I know you and Paddy will get on first-rate."

Gwen held out her hand to Paddy and looked frankly into her face, as much as to say, "I know you hate me, but I mean to change all that," and Paddy, slightly disarmed, shook hands and said, "How do you do," with a little less starchiness.

For ten minutes, results hung in the balance. Gwen was at her best; she was indeed most charming; but Paddy was obstinate, not to say somewhat pig-headed, and when she was in that mood, to quote Basil, you might almost as well try to persuade a lamp-post to walk across the road.

But Basil was not Gwen, and if he had tried for a life-time, he could not have cultivated such powers of persuasion as hers and in this she meant to win. Paddy would have needed to be made of adamant to withstand her. In the end, of course, she gave in, and by the time the stately butler condescended to serve them with tea, a merrier trio it would have been difficult to find.

Lawrence heard their gay laughter down in the hall, as he hung up his hat, and smiled a little grimly.

"Gwen's won," he said to himself. "I wonder what sort of a reception I shall get?"

He walked slowly upstairs, and as slowly entered the drawing-room.

Paddy was entertaining the other two with some of her dispensing adventures and for a moment he remained unnoticed. Paddy saw him first.

"I was reaching to a high shelf--" she was saying, and then she stopped short suddenly, with her eyes on the door.

The other two looked round quickly, as Lawrence advanced, saying, "Yes, you were reaching to a high shelf, and--"

"Nothing," said Paddy, "or at least nothing that would interest you."

"Try me."

"Come along, Lawrie," cried Gwen. "We're having a regular, jolly old school-girl afternoon. You'll find it an education gratis, and you can eat as much cake as you like. We are all eating as if we had never ate before, to make up for the times we went hungry at school."

Lawrence sat down by Doreen, opposite to Paddy.

"Delighted," he murmured. "Always thought the _role_ of school-girl would suit me down to the ground. Touching this high shelf--don't let me interrupt you, Paddy."

Paddy looked furious and got scarlet in the face. She was determined she _would not_ be friendly with Lawrence, and yet here she was, almost on intimate terms with his _fiancee_, and fairly caught as regards himself.

Gwen dropped her long lashes to hide a decided gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt, while Doreen, pouring out tea and noticing nothing, said, "Go on, Paddy, you needn't mind Lawrence."

"Of course not," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on her. "Why should she?"

Still Paddy bit her lip and hesitated. "It's time I was going," she said at last, very lamely, looking around for her gloves.

Gwen's mouth twitched desperately at the corners and Doreen looked up in surprise. Doreen's expression made Paddy pull herself together.

"It wasn't really anything worth telling," she said, "only that, instead of standing on something to make myself taller as I ought to have done, I tried to tilt the jar over into my hand, and while doing so the stopper flew out. The jar was full of black powder, and before I could help myself I had most of it in my face and over my hair. You never saw anything so awful as I looked. Brushing it off left long black streaks in all directions, and the taste on my lips was filthy; the three people waiting for their medicine nearly had convulsions, and the doctor came out to see what was the matter."

"Oh, how delicious!" cried Gwen in enjoyment. "Whatever did he say?"

while Doreen, laughing heartily, gasped:

"Oh, Paddy, you must have looked piebald!"

"Goodness only knows what I did look like," she said. "I thought the doctor was going to faint. I tried to explain, but I was laughing so myself, and meanwhile getting such horrid tastes of the wretched stuff, that I couldn't frame a sensible sentence. Finally, he grasped the situation for himself, and stayed to get on with the dispensing, while I went to try and get my face clean." While they were still laughing, she got up to go.

"I'm coming to call on you if I may?" said Gwen as they shook hands.

Paddy looked doubtful.

"It's rather an awful place to come to," she explained, "the ugliest part of Shepherd's Bush. You'd never find it."

"Oh, yes, I will. I'll have a taxi, and refuse to get out until he stops at your door. He'll find it after a time."

"I'm only a visitor at my uncle's now, though," she continued in the same doubtful voice, "and--well, to tell you the honest truth, my aunt is rather tedious. She's quite sure to help me entertain you, and she'll give you a detailed history of every church work in the parish, from its earliest infancy."

"I know!" cried Gwen with a sudden idea. "We'll go to the surgery, Doreen. We'll hunt up some old prescriptions, and pretend we're poor people come for medicine. Yes, that will be much better fun! I've never seen a dispensary, and I'd love to poke about in all the drawers and bottles," to which Doreen agreed readily and Paddy turned, to the door.

Lawrence followed her.

"Shall I get my head bitten off if I venture to escort you to the hall?"

he asked, so that she alone could hear.

"I would not trouble you for the world," she replied frigidly, and offered her hand.

Lawrence looked into her eyes, and something like a flash of sword-play pa.s.sed between them.

"All the same," he remarked, coolly, "I am going to send you home in a hansom, and see you into it myself."

Paddy saw it was useless to object there and did not want to make a scene, so went stiffly downstairs. In the hall the lordly James stood waiting.

"Call a hansom," said Lawrence briefly.

"Not for me," said Paddy, with her nose in the air. "I am going in a 'bus."

"But it is raining fast, and you will only get wet." Lawrence spoke a little urgently, while the butler waited with impa.s.sive face.

"I love getting wet," icily.

The faintest suspicion of a smile hovered over Lawrence's lips, but he only turned to the butler and said, "Go and ask Miss Doreen's maid for a cloak and umbrella."

Paddy was unpleasantly aware that she could not afford to risk getting her one smart costume spoiled, so she yielded with a bad grace.

When they were alone he turned to her again, and his thin lips compressed into a straight line.