The City of Masks Part 8

I am not growing old despite my seventy years. If I could but grow old, and deaf, and feeble, perhaps I should then be able to command the blood that thrills now with the thought of--But, alas! I shall never be so old as that! You say he witnessed this remarkable--ah--exhibition of strength on your part?" He spoke briskly again.

"The snow was a couple of feet deep, you see," explained Trotter, who had turned a bright crimson. "Dreadful night, wasn't it, Bramble?"

"I know what kind of a night it was," said the old Frenchman, delightedly. "My warmest congratulations, my friend. She is the loveliest, the n.o.blest, the truest--"

"I beg your pardon," interrupted Trotter, stiffly. "It hasn't gone as far as all that."

"It has gone farther than you think," said M. Mirabeau shrewdly. "And that is why you were discharged without--"

"By gad! The worst of it all is, she will probably get her walking papers too,--if she hasn't already got them," groaned the young man.

"Don't you see what has happened? The rotter has kicked up a rumpus about that innocent,--and if I do say it,--gallant act of mine the other night. They've had her on the carpet to explain. It looks bad for her.

They're the sort of people you can't explain things to. What rotten luck! She needs the money and--"

"Nothing of the kind has happened," said M. Mirabeau with conviction.

"It isn't in young Mr. S.-P.'s plans to have her dismissed. That would be--ah, what is it you say?--spilling the beans, eh? The instant she relinquishes her place in that household all hope is lost, so far as he is concerned. He is shrewd enough to realize that, my friend. You are the fly in his ointment. It is necessary to the success of his enterprise to be well rid of you. He doesn't want to lose sight of her, however. He--"

"Run me out of town, eh?" grated Trotter, his thoughts leaping back to the pa.s.sage in Lady Jane's letter. "Easier said than done, he'll find."

Mr. Bramble coughed. "Are we not going it rather blindly? All this is pure speculation. The young man may not have a hand in the business at all."

"He'll discover he's put his foot in it if he tries any game on me,"

said Mr. Trotter.

M. Mirabeau beamed. "There is always a way to checkmate the villain in the story. You see it exemplified in every melodrama on the stage and in every shilling shocker. The hero,--and you are our hero,--puts him to rout by marrying the heroine and living happily to a hale old age. What could be more beautiful than the marriage of Lady Jane Thorne and Lord Eric Carruthers Ethelbert Temple? Mon dieu! It is--"

"Rubbish!" exclaimed Mr. Trotter, suddenly looking down at his foot, which was employed in the laudable but unnecessary act of removing a tiny shaving from a crack in the floor. "Besides," he went on an instant later, acknowledging an interval of mental consideration, "she wouldn't have me."

"It is my time to say 'rubbish,'" said the old Frenchman. "Why wouldn't she have you?"

"Because she doesn't care for me in that way, if you must know," blurted out the young man.

"Has she said so?"

"Of course not. She wouldn't be likely to volunteer the information, would she?" with fine irony.

"Then how do you know she doesn't care for you in that way?"

"Well, I--I just simply know it, that's all."

"I see. You are the smartest man of all time if you know a woman's heart without probing into it, or her mind without tricking it. She permitted you to carry her up the steps, didn't she?"

"She had to," said Trotter forcibly. "That doesn't prove anything. And what's more, she objected to being carried."

"Um! What did she say?"

"Said she didn't in the least mind getting her feet wet. She'd have her boots off as soon as she got into the house."

"Is that all?"

"She said she was awfully heavy, and--Oh, there is no use talking to me.

I know how to take a hint. She just didn't want me to--er--carry her, that's the long and the short of it."

"Did she struggle violently?"

"What?"

"You heard me. Did she?"

"Certainly not. She gave in when I insisted. What else could she do?" He whirled suddenly upon Mr. Bramble. "What are you grinning about, Bramby?"

"Who's grinning?" demanded Mr. Bramble indignantly, after the lapse of thirty or forty seconds.

"You _were_, confound you. I don't see anything to laugh at in--"

"My advice to you," broke in M. Mirabeau, still detached, "is to ask her."

"Ask her? Ask her what?"

"To marry you. As I was saying--"

"My G.o.d!" gasped Trotter.

"That is my advice also," put in Mr. Bramble, fumbling with his gla.s.ses and trying to suppress a smile,--for fear it would be misinterpreted. "I can't think of anything more admirable than the union of the Temple and Wexham families in--"

"But, good Lord," cried Trotter, "even if she'd have me, how on earth could I take care of her on a chauffeur's pay? And I'm not getting that now. I wish to call your attention to the fact that your little hero has less than fifty pounds,--a good deal less than fifty,--laid by for a rainy day."

"I've known a great many people who were married on rainy days," said M.

Mirabeau brightly, "and nothing unlucky came of it."

"Moreover, when your grandfather pa.s.ses away," urged Mr. Bramble, "you will be a very rich man,--provided, of course, he doesn't remain obstinate and leave his money to some one else. In any event, you would come in for sufficient to--"

"You forget," began Trotter, gravely and with a dignity that chilled the eager old man, "that I will not go back to England, nor will I claim anything that is _in_ England, until a certain injustice is rectified and I am set straight in the eyes of the unbelievers."

Mr. Bramble cleared his throat. "Time will clear up everything, my lad.

G.o.d knows you never did the--"

"G.o.d knows it all right enough, but G.o.d isn't a member of the Brunswick Club, and His voice is never heard there in counsel. He may lend a helping hand to those who are trying to clear my name, because they believe in me, but the whole business is beginning to look pretty dark to me."

"Ahem! What does Miss--ah, Lady Jane think about the--ah, unfortunate affair?" stammered Mr. Bramble.

"She doesn't believe a d.a.m.n' word of it," exploded Trotter, his face lighting up.

"Good!" cried M. Mirabeau. "Proof that she pities you, and what more could you ask for a beginning? She believes you were unjustly accused of cheating at cards, that there was a plot to ruin you and to drive you out of the Army, and that your grandfather ought to be hung to a lamp post for believing what she doesn't believe. Good! Now we are on solid, substantial ground. What time is it, Bramble?"

Mr. Bramble looked at a half-dozen clocks in succession.

"I'm blessed if I know," he said. "They range from ten o'clock to half-past six."

"Just three hours and twenty-two minutes to wait," said Thomas Trotter.