The Convert Part 63

'There mayn't be another train! Miss Levering!'

But Stonor was standing in front of the girl barring the way. 'What if there isn't? I'll take you back in my motor,' he said aside.

'_Will_ you?' In her rapture at the thought Jean clasped her hands, and the paper fluttered to the floor. 'But I must be there by three,' she said.

He had picked up the telegraph form as well as the handkerchief lying near.

'Why, it's only an invitation to dine--Wednesday!'

'Sh!' She took the paper.

'Oh! I see!' He smiled and lowered his voice. 'It's rather dear of you to arrange our going off like that. You _are_ a clever little girl!'

'It's not exactly that I was arranging. I want to hear those women in Trafalgar Square--the Suffragettes.'

He stared at her more than half incredulous, but smiling still.

'How perfectly absurd! Besides,'--he looked across the room at Lady John--'besides, I expect she wouldn't like my carrying you off like that.'

'Then she'll have to make an excuse, and come too.'

'Ah, it wouldn't be quite the same if she did that.'

But Jean had thought it out. 'Aunt Ellen and I could get back quite well in time for dinner.'

The group that had closed about the departing guest dissolved.

'Why are you saying good-bye as if you were never coming back?' Lord John demanded.

'One never knows,' Miss Levering laughed. 'Maybe I shan't come back.'

'Don't talk as if you meant never!' said Mrs. Freddy.

'Perhaps I do mean never.' She nodded to Stonor.

He bowed ceremoniously.

'Never come back! What nonsense are you talking?' said Lady John.

'Is it premonition of death, or don't you like us any more?' laughed her husband.

The little group trailed across the great room, escorting the guest to the front door, Lady John leading the way. As they pa.s.sed, Geoffrey Stonor was obviously not listening very attentively to Jean's enthusiastic explanation of her plan for the afternoon. He kept his eyes lowered. They rested on the handkerchief he had picked up, but hardly as if, after all, they saw it, though he turned the filmy square from corner to corner with an air partly of nervousness, partly of abstraction.

'Is it mine?' asked Jean.

He paused an instant. 'No. Yours,' he said, mechanically, and held out the handkerchief to Miss Levering.

She seemed not to hear. Lord John had blocked the door a moment, insisting on a date for the next visit. Jean caught up the handkerchief and went running forward with it. Suddenly she stopped, glancing down at the embroidered corner.

'But that's not an L! It's V--i----'

Stonor turned his back, and took up a magazine.

Lady John's voice sounded clear from the lobby. 'You must let Vida go, John, or she'll miss her train.'

Miss Levering vanished.

'I didn't know her name was Vida; how did you?' said Jean.

Stonor bent his head silently over the book. Perhaps he hadn't heard.

That deafening old gong was sounding for luncheon.

CHAPTER XVI

The last of the Trafalgar Square meetings was half over when the great chocolate-coloured motor, containing three persons besides the chauffeur, slowed up on the west side of the square. Neither of the two ladies in their all-enveloping veils was easily recognizable, still less the be-goggled countenance of the Hon. Geoffrey Stonor. When he took off his motor gla.s.ses, he did not turn down his dust collar. He even pulled farther over his eyes the peak of his linen cap.

By coming at all on this expedition, he had given Jean a signal proof of his desire to please her--but it was plain that he had no mind to see in the papers that he had been a.s.sisting at such a spectacle. While he gave instructions as to where the car should wait, Jean was staring at the vast crowd ma.s.sed on the north side of the column. It extended back among the fountains, and even escaped on each side beyond the vigilance of the guardian lions. There were scores listening there who could not see the speakers even as well as could the occupants of the car. In front of the little row of women on the plinth a gaunt figure in brown serge was waving her arms. What she was saying was blurred in the general uproar.

'Oh, that's one!' Jean called out excitedly. 'Oh, let's hurry.'

But even after they left the car and reached the crowd, to hurry was a thing no man could do. For some minutes the motor-party had only occasional glimpses of the speakers, and heard little more than fragments.

'Who is that, Geoffrey?'

'The tall young fellow with the stoop? That appears to be the chairman.'

Stonor himself stooped--to the eager girl who had clutched his sleeve from behind, and was following him closely through the press. 'The artless chairman, I take it, is scolding the people for not giving the woman a hearing!' They laughed together at the young man's foolishness.

Even had an open-air meeting been more of a commonplace to Stonor, it would have had for him that effect of newness that an old thing wears when seen by an act of sympathy through new eyes.

'You must be sure and explain _everything_ to me, Geoffrey,' said the girl. 'This is to be an important chapter in my education.' Merrily and without a shadow of misgiving she spoke in jest a truer word than she dreamed. He fell in with her mood.

'Well, I rather gather that he's been criticizing the late Government, and Liberals have made it hot for him.'

'I shall never be able to hear unless we get nearer,' said Jean, anxiously.

'There's a very rough element in front there----'

'Oh, don't let us mind!'

'Most certainly I mind!'

'Oh, but I should be miserable if I didn't hear.'

She pleaded so bewitchingly for a front seat at the Show that unwillingly he wormed his way on. Suddenly he stood still and stared about.