The City of Masks Part 47

"He is coming to me today," said young Mrs. Millidew sweetly. "Aren't you, Trotter?"

"No, I am not!" he exploded.

She stopped short on the stairs, and gave him a startled, incredulous look. Any one else but Trotter would have been struck by her loveliness.

"You're not?" cried Mrs. Millidew from the top step. It was almost a cry of relief. "Do you mean that?"

"Absolutely."

His employer fumbled for a pocket lost among the folds of her dressing-gown.

"Well, you can't resign, my man. Don't think for a minute you can resign," she cried out shrilly.

He thought she was looking for a handkerchief.

"But I insist, Mrs. Millidew, that I--"

"You can't resign for the simple reason that you're already fired," she sputtered. "I never allow any one to give _me_ notice, young man. No one ever left me without being discharged, let me tell you that. Where the dev--Oh, here it is!" She not only had found the pocket but the crisp slip of paper that it contained. "Here is a check for your week's wages.

It isn't up till next Monday, but take it and get out. I never want to see your ugly face again."

She crumpled the bit of paper in her hand and threw the ball in his direction. Its flight ended half-way down the steps.

"Come and get it, if you want it," she said.

"Good day, madam," he said crisply, and turned on his heel.

"How many times must I tell you not to call me--Come back here, Dolly! I want to see you."

But her tall, perplexed daughter-in-law pa.s.sed out through the door, followed by the erect and lordly Mr. Trotter.

"Good-bye, Tommie," whispered Katie, as he donned his grey fedora.

"Good-bye, Katie," he said, smiling, and held out his hand to her. "You heard what she said. If you should ever think of resigning, I'd suggest you do it in writing and from a long way off." He looked behind the vestibule door and recovered a smart little walking-stick. "Something to lean upon in my misfortune," he explained to Katie.

Young Mrs. Millidew was standing at the top of the steps, evidently waiting for him. Her brow wrinkled as she took him in from head to foot.

He was wearing spats. His two-b.u.t.ton serge coat looked as though it had been made for him,--and his correctly pressed trousers as well. He stood for a moment, his head erect, his heels a little apart, his stick under his arm, while he drew on,--with no inconsiderable effect--a pair of light tan gloves. And the smile with which he favoured her was certainly not that of a punctilious menial. On the contrary, it was the rather bland, casual smile of one who is very well satisfied with his position.

In a cheery, off-hand manner he inquired if she was by any chance going in his direction.

The metamorphosis was complete. The instant he stepped outside of Mrs.

Millidew's door, the mask was cast aside. He stood now before the world,--and before the puzzled young widow in particular,--as a thoroughbred, c.o.c.ksure English gentleman. In a moment his whole being seemed to have undergone a change. He carried himself differently; his voice and the manner in which he used it struck her at once as remarkably altered; more than anything else, was she impressed by the calm a.s.surance of his inquiry.

She was nonplussed. For a moment she hesitated between resentment and the swift-growing conviction that he was an equal.

For the first time within the range of her memory, she felt herself completely rattled and uncertain of herself. She blushed like a fool,--as she afterwards confessed,--and stammered confusedly:

"I--yes--that is, I am going home."

"Come along, then," he said coolly, and she actually gasped.

To her own amazement, she took her place beside him and descended the steps, her cheeks crimson. At the bottom, she cast a wild, anxious look up and down the street, and then over her shoulder at the second-story windows of the house they had just left.

Queer little shivers were running all over her. She couldn't account for them,--any more than she could account for the astonishing performance to which she was now committed: that of walking jauntily through a fashionable cross-town street in the friendliest, most intimate manner with her mother-in-law's discharged chauffeur! Fifth Avenue but a few steps away, with all its mid-morning activities to be encountered! What on earth possessed her! "Come along, then," he had said with all the calmness of an old and privileged acquaintance! And obediently she had "come along"!

His chin was up, his eyes were sparkling; his body was bent forward slightly at the waist to co-ordinate with the somewhat p.r.o.nounced action of his legs; his hat was slightly tilted and placed well back on his head; his gay little walking-stick described graceful revolutions.

She was suddenly aware of a new thrill--one of satisfaction. As she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, her face cleared.

Instinctively she grasped the truth. Whatever he may have been yesterday, he was quite another person today,--and it was a pleasure to be seen with him!

She lengthened her stride, and held up her head. Her red lips parted in a dazzling smile.

"I suppose it is useless to ask you to change your mind,--Trotter," she said, purposely hesitating over the name.

"Quite," said he, smiling into her eyes.

She was momentarily disconcerted. She found it more difficult than she had thought to look into his eyes.

"Why do you call yourself Trotter?" she asked, after a moment.

"I haven't the remotest idea," he said. "It came to me quite unexpectedly."

"It isn't a pretty name," she observed. "Couldn't you have done better?"

"I daresay I might have called myself Marjoribanks with perfect propriety," said he. "Or Plantagenet, or Cholmondeley. But it would have been quite a waste of time, don't you think?"

"Would you mind telling me who you really are?"

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Oh, yes, I would. I could believe anything of you."

"Well, I am the Prince of Wales."

She flushed. "I believe you," she said. "Forgive my impertinence, Prince."

"Forgive mine, Mrs. Millidew," he said soberly. "My name is Temple, Eric Temple. That does not convey anything to you, of course."

"It conveys something vastly more interesting than Trotter,--Thomas Trotter."

"And yet I am morally certain that Trotter had a great deal more to him than Eric Temple ever had," said he. "Trotter was a rather good sort, if I do say it myself. He was a hard-working, honest, intelligent fellow who found the world a very jolly old thing. I shall miss Trotter terribly, Mrs. Millidew. He used to read me to sleep nearly every night, and if I got a headache or a pain anywhere he did my complaining for me.

He was with me night and day for three years and more, and that, let me tell you, is the severest test. I've known him to curse me roundly, to call me nearly everything under the sun,--and yet I let him go on doing it without a word in self-defence. Once he saved my life in an Indian jungle,--he was a remarkably good shot, you see. And again he pulled me through a pretty stiff illness in Tokio. I don't know how I should have got on without Trotter."

"You are really quite delicious, Mr. Eric Temple. By the way, did you allow the admirable Trotter to direct your affairs of the heart?"

"I did," said he promptly.

"That is rather disappointing," said she, shaking her head. "Trotter may not have played the game fairly, you know. With all the best intentions in the world, he may have taken advantage of your--shall I say indifference?"