The City of Masks Part 12

Overtaking her in one of the narrow, remote little paths, he suggested that they cross over to Bustan.o.by's and have tea and a bite of something sweet. He was quite out of breath. She had given him a long chase, this long-limbed girl with her free English stride.

"It's a nice quiet place," he said, "and we won't see a soul we know."

Primed by a.s.surance, he had the hardihood to grasp her arm with a sort of possessive familiarity. Whereupon, according to the narrator, he sustained his first disheartening shock. She jerked her arm away and faced him with blazing eyes.

"Don't do that!" she said. "What do you mean by following me like this?"

"Oh, come now," he exclaimed blankly; "don't be so d.a.m.ned uppish. I didn't sleep a wink last night, thinking about you. You--"

"Nor did I sleep a wink, Mr. Smith-Parvis, thinking about you," she retorted, looking straight into his eyes. "I am afraid you don't know me as well as you think you do. Will you be good enough to permit me to continue my walk unmolested?"

He laughed in her face. "Out here to meet the pretty chauffeur, are you?

I thought so. Well, I'll stick around and make the crowd. Is he likely to pop up out of the bushes and try to bite me, my dear? Better give him the signal to lay low, unless you want to see him nicely booted."

("My G.o.d!" fell from Thomas Trotter's compressed lips.)

"Then I made a grievous mistake," she explained to the quartette. "It is all my fault, Mr. Trotter. I brought disaster upon you when I only intended to sound your praises. I told him that nothing could suit me better than to have you pop up out of the bushes, just for the pleasure it would give me to see him run for home as fast as he could go. It made him furious."

Smith-Parvis Jr. proceeded to give her "what for," to use his own words.

In sheer amazement, she listened to his vile insinuations. She was speechless.

"And here am I," he had said, toward the end of the indictment, "a gentleman, born and bred, offering you what this scurvy bounder cannot possibly give you, and you pretend to turn up your nose at me. I am gentleman enough to overlook all that has transpired between you and that loafer, and I am gentleman enough to keep my mouth shut at home, where a word from me would pack you off in two seconds. And I'd like to see you get another fat job in New York after that. You ought to be jolly grateful to me."

"If I am the sort of person you say I am," she had replied, trembling with fury, "how can you justify your conscience in letting me remain for a second longer in charge of your little sisters?"

"What the devil do I care about them? I'm only thinking of you. I'm mad about you, can't you understand? And I'd like to know what conscience has to do with _that_."

Then he had coolly, deliberately, announced his plan of action to her.

"You are to stay on at the house as long as you like, getting your nice little pay check every month, and something from me besides. Ah, I'm no piker! Leave it all to me. As for this friend of yours, he has to go.

He'll be out of a job tomorrow. I know Carpenter. He will do anything I ask. He'll have to, confound him. I've got him where he can't even squeak. And what's more, if this Trotter is not out of New York inside of three days, I'll land him in jail. Oh, don't think I can't do it, my dear. There's a way to get these renegade foreigners,--every one of 'em,--so you'd better keep clear of him if you don't want to be mixed up in the business. I am doing all this for your own good. Some day you'll thank me. You are the first girl I've ever really loved, and--I--I just can't stand by and let you go to the devil with my eyes shut. I am going to save you, whether you like it or not. I am going to do the right thing by you, and you will never regret chucking this rotter for me. We will have to be a little careful at home, that's all. It would never do to let the old folks see that I am more than ordinarily interested in you, or you in me. Once, when I was a good deal younger and didn't have much sense, I spoiled a--but you wouldn't care to hear about it."

She declared to them that she would never forget the significant grin he permitted himself in addition to the wink.

"The dog!" grated Thomas Trotter, his knuckles white.

M. Mirabeau straightened himself to his full height,--and a fine figure of a man was he!

"Mr. Trotter," he said, with grave dignity, "it will afford me the greatest pleasure and honour to represent you in this crisis. Pray command me. No doubt the scoundrel will refuse to meet you, but at any rate a challenge may be--"

Miss Emsdale broke in quickly. "Don't,--for heaven's sake, dear M.

Mirabeau,--don't put such notions into his head! It is bad enough as it is. I beg of you--"

"Besides," said Mr. Bramble, "one doesn't fight duels in this country, any more than one does in England. It's quite against the law."

"I sha'n't need any one to represent me when it comes to punching his head," said Mr. Trotter.

"It's against the law, strictly speaking, to punch a person's head,"

began Mr. Bramble nervously.

"But it's not against the law, confound you, Bramby, to provide a legal excuse for going to jail, is it? He says he's going to put me there.

Well, I intend to make it legal and--"

"Oh, goodness!" cried Miss Emsdale, in dismay.

"--And I'm not going to jail for nothing, you can stake your life on that."

"Do you think, Mr. Trotter, that it will add to my happiness if you are lodged in jail on my account?" said she. "Haven't I done you sufficient injury--"

"Now, you are not to talk like that," he interrupted, reddening.

"But I _shall_ talk like that," she said firmly. "I have not come here to ask you to take up my battles for me but to warn you of danger.

Please do not interrupt me. I know you would enjoy it, and all that sort of thing, but it isn't to be considered. Hear me out."

She went on with her story. Young Mr. Smith-Parvis, still contending that he was a gentleman and a friend as well as an abject adorer, made it very plain to her that he would stand no foolishness. He told her precisely what he would do unless she eased up a bit and acted like a good, sensible girl. He would have her dismissed without character and he would see to it that no respectable house would be open to her after she left the service of the Smith-Parvises.

"But couldn't you put the true situation before his parents and tell 'em what sort of a rotten bounder he is?" demanded Trotter.

"You do not know them, Mr. Trotter," she said forlornly.

"And they'd kick you out without giving you a chance to prove to them that he is a filthy liar and--"

"Just as Mr. Carpenter kicked you out," she said.

"By gad, I--I wouldn't stay in their house another day if I were you,"

he exclaimed wrathfully. "I'd quit so quickly they wouldn't have time to--"

"And then what?" she asked bitterly. "Am I so rich and independent as all that? You forget that I must have a 'character,' Mr. Trotter. That, you see, would be denied me. I could not obtain employment. Even Mrs.

Sparflight would be powerless to help me after the character they would give me."

"But, good Lord, you--you're not going to stay on in the house with that da--that nasty brute, are you?" he cried, aghast.

"I must have time to think, Mr. Trotter," she said quietly. "Now, don't say anything more,--please! I shall take good care of myself, never fear. My woes are small compared to yours, I am afraid. The next morning after our little scene in the park, he came down to breakfast, smiling and triumphant. He said he had news for me. Mr. Carpenter was to dismiss you that morning, but had agreed not to prefer charges against you,--at least, not for the present." She paused to moisten her lips. There was a hara.s.sed look in her eyes.

"Charges?" said Trotter, after a moment. The other men leaned forward, fresh interest in their faces.

"Did you say charges, Miss Emsdale?" asked Mr. Bramble, putting his hand to his ear.

"He told me that Mr. Carpenter was at first determined to turn you over to the police, but that he had begged him to give you a chance. He--he says that Mr. Carpenter has had a private detective watching you for a fortnight, and--and--oh, I cannot say it!"

"Go on," said Trotter harshly; "say it!"

"Well, of course, I know and you understand it is simply part of his outrageous plan, but he says your late employer has positive proof that you took--that you took some marked bank notes out of his overcoat pocket a few days ago. He had been missing money and had provided himself with marked--"

Trotter leaped to his feet with a cry of rage.

"Sit down!" commanded Mr. Bramble. "Sit down! Where are you going?"

"Great G.o.d! Do you suppose I can sit still and let him get away with anything like that?" roared Trotter. "I'm going to jam those words down Carpenter's craven throat. I'm--"