The Mischief-Maker Part 35

"You are a brick," Lady Anne declared. "I shall love to go."

"Monsieur is too kind," Mademoiselle Rignaut agreed, "but as for me, it is not fitting--"

"Rubbish!" Lady Anne interrupted briskly. "You've got to get all that sort of stuff out of your head, Janette, and to start with you must come to supper with us. Bless you, I couldn't go alone with Sir Julien!

I was engaged to be married to him three months ago."

Mademoiselle shook her head feebly.

"But indeed, Miladi Anne," she protested, "you are a strange people, you English! I do not understand."

Lady Anne took her by the arm and turned towards the open door.

"Don't bother about that. We'll be ready in half an hour, Julien."

Julien returned to the Gare du Nord and treated himself to a whiskey and soda. He was surprised at the pleasurable sense of excitement which this meeting had given him. During the last few weeks in Paris he had found little to interest or amuse him. He had been, in fact, very distinctly bored. The newspapers and ill.u.s.trated journals, although they were always full of interest to him, had day by day brought their own particular sting. Although his affection for Lady Anne had been of a distinctly modified character, yet he had found it curiously unpleasant to read everywhere of her engagement, of her plans for the future, and to look at the photographs of her and her intended bridegroom which seemed to stare at him from every page. Somehow or other, although he told himself that personally it was of no consequence to him, he yet found the present situation of affairs far more to his liking.

He lounged about the Gare du Nord, smoking a cigarette and thinking over what she had told him. There was a good deal in the present situation to appeal to his sense of humor. He thought of the Duke and the d.u.c.h.ess when they discovered the flight of their daughter,--their efforts to keep all details from the papers; of Harbord and his horde of relations--Harbord, who had neither the dignity nor the breeding to accept such a reverse in silence. He could imagine the gossip at the clubs and among their friends. He himself was immensely surprised. He had considered himself something of a judge of character, and yet he had looked upon Lady Anne as a good-natured young person, brimful of common sense, without an ounce of sentiment--a perfectly well-ordered piece of the machinery of her s.e.x. The whole affair was astonishing.

Perhaps to him the most astonishing part was that he found himself continually looking at the clock, counting almost the minutes until it was possible for him to start on this little expedition!

CHAPTER II

"TO OUR NEW SELVES"

Julien found a taximeter automobile and, punctually at the time appointed, drove to the little milliner's shop in the Rue St. Antoine.

Lady Anne and her companion were waiting for him and they drove off together in high good humor. The manager at the Abbaye bowed before them with special deference. He recognized Julien as an occasional customer, and Lady Anne, even in her traveling gown, was a person to inspire attention.

They chose a table and ordered supper for four. Kendricks had not yet arrived, but it was barely half-past eleven and the place was almost empty. Lady Anne was in high spirits and chattering all the time.

Julien looked at her occasionally in amazement. They had seldom been alone together in London, but on those few occasions when the conventions had demanded it, he had been inclined to find her rather stupid. She was certainly nothing of the sort this evening!

"I suppose I am a baby," she exclaimed, laughing, "but to-night I feel as though I were beginning a new life! Tell me, mademoiselle, have you a place for me as a seamstress? Or will you have me for a model? My figure is good enough, isn't it?"

"Miladi," Mademoiselle Rignaut declared deprecatingly, "there is no girl in my shop with a figure like yours, but it is not well for you to talk so, indeed. It is shocking."

Lady Anne laughed gayly.

"Now, my little friend," she said, "let us understand one another.

There is no more 'miladi.' I am Anne--Anne to you and Anne to Julien here. I've finished with the 'miladi' affair. I dare say I shouldn't care about being a model, but all the same I am going to earn my own living."

"Earn your own living!" Mademoiselle Rignaut echoed, in something like horror.

She had met the Duke and the d.u.c.h.ess--she had traveled even to London and had pa.s.sed the night beneath the ducal roof. Lady Anne's mother had very sound ideas of economy, and Mademoiselle Rignaut was cheap and yet undoubtedly French.

"Earn my own living, without a doubt," Lady Anne repeated, helping herself to a roll. "You don't mind my eating some bread and b.u.t.ter, do you, Julien? I couldn't lunch--I was much too excited, and the tea on the train was filthy. Why, of course I am going to earn my own living,"

she continued. "I've only got a few thousand francs with me, and some jewelry. I believe I have got a small income, but Heaven knows whether they will let me have it!"

Julien's eyes were suddenly lit with humor.

"Why, the Duke will be here for you to-morrow," he exclaimed, "to take you back!"

She leaned back in her seat with an air of deliberation.

"I'm free," she insisted. "I'm twenty-six years old, thank Heaven!

Twenty-six years I've had of it--enough to crush any one. No more! You know, I like this sense of freedom," she went on. "It's perfectly amazing how young I feel. Julien, do you remember when mother wouldn't let us lunch together at the Ritz without a chaperon?"

"I do," he a.s.sented. "I'm sure we didn't need one, either."

She smiled reminiscently.

"What sticks we were! What a silly life! I really have the most delightful feeling, as though I were starting things all over again, as though there were all sorts of wonderful adventures before me."

Julien looked at her quickly. There was no woman in the place half so good-looking or with any pretensions to such style. He was conscious of an odd twinge of jealousy.

"You'll have no trouble in finding adventures," he remarked a little grimly.

Her eyes flashed back an answer to his thought.

"Bless you, I don't want anything to do with men! Fancy having been engaged to you and to Samuel Harbord! What further thrills could possibly be in store for me?"

"Well, I don't know," Julien retorted. "I suppose if I was a stick, there must have been something about you which induced me to be one."

"Not a bit of it," she objected. "You were a solemn, studious, gentlemanly, well-behaved, well-conducted prig--very much a male edition of what I was myself. What a life we should have lived together!... Here's your friend. You know, I rather like the look of him. He's so delightfully untidy. I should think he belongs round about the new world, doesn't he?"

"He's a working journalist," Julien answered, "a very clever fellow and a good friend of mine."

"Then I shall adore him," Lady Anne decided,--"not because he is a good friend of yours, but because he is a working journalist. Why, I saw him sitting waiting for you the day you came and wished me that touching good-bye," she added. "I liked him even then. It seemed so sweet of him to come and help you through that terrible ordeal."

She held out her hand to Kendricks very charmingly when he was presented.

"Don't be terrified at finding us here, please," she begged. "I know you have some business to talk over with Julien, but you see we were starving, and Julien had to be polite to me because we were once engaged to be married. I promise you that when we have eaten we will go home."

Kendricks looked at her for a moment and smiled.

"You know," he said, "I believe you've run away."

She laughed.

"I felt sure that I was going to like your friend, Julien!" she exclaimed. "He understands things so quickly."

"I am a newspaper man, you see," he told her. "Just as I left, I was reading all sorts of things about your wedding, and the presents, and the rest of it. I saw you in the train and recognized you."

"Don't think I've come over after Julien," she continued cheerfully. "I never dreamed of seeing him--not just yet, at any rate. I had no idea where to run to, but Paris seemed to me so easy and so natural, and somehow or other it must be more difficult to worry any one into going back from a foreign country. Not that I've any idea of going back," she broke off. "I think I'm going to enjoy life hugely out here."

"But it is most astonishing!" Mademoiselle Rignaut declared with a gasp.