The Shadow of the Past Part 25

"And charging extra for pinning them in the lucky purchaser's b.u.t.tonhole?" he suggested.

"Come and find out whether I do that at the next bazaar," she said.

"She always does well at the flower stall," May commented. "That's why they ask her to serve. I don't see much difference between charging extra for pinning in a b.u.t.tonhole and taking tips."

"It's both a form of blackmail," Matheson a.s.serted.

"You don't believe in tipping then?"

"Oh! I believe in it--it's too evident to be questioned; and custom, like the right of way through a person's property, legalises most things."

"People are so much more civil when one tips them," Rosie observed.

"If they return civility, that's value for one's money all right. But the civility depends largely on the amount of the tip," he said.

The inference they drew from his remarks was that he inclined to meanness, and they both, under cover of searching for gloves and vanity bags, took a surrept.i.tious interest in the proceedings that followed upon the presentation of the account which the neat Puritan waitress un.o.btrusively placed beside his plate, and then, even more un.o.btrusively, withdrew to a distance as though a tip were the last thing in the world she expected to receive or desired. He took up the check, glanced at the amount, placed sixpence on the table as un.o.btrusively as the Puritan girl had delivered his account, and was approaching the desk behind his gay companions when he felt a touch on his sleeve.

"Your change, if you please."

In the hand which had touched his arm, lying upon the open palm, was the sixpence he had left on the table. He felt awkward as his glance fell to it; it was difficult he found to explain.

"That's all right," he was beginning over his shoulder, and broke off embarra.s.sed before the persistence of that outstretched determined little hand so obviously refusing his munificence.

"Thanks," he added hurriedly, and faced round. "I must have dropped it."

He looked at her as he took the coin, a little curious about her. He hadn't noticed her when she served his party; he had been preoccupied, and she had kept in the background somehow. It flashed across his mind to wonder whether she had overheard any part of their talk, and resented his remarks about tipping. Then his eyes met hers, and the coin which he was in the act of taking slipped from his fingers and rolled away out of sight.

"You!" he cried. His eager hand shot out and grasped the small one which had returned his money. "I have been trying to discover you for months. I thought I had lost you... And you've been here, close at hand, all the while!"

A faint colour warmed the face that had lost much of its brownness, the dawn of a smile broke in the earnest eyes he had last seen raised to his in the moonlight in the shadowy road beneath the oleanders--a hint of a smile which failed to reach her lips.

"I thought you had forgotten," Brenda said.

He remembered that for a time he had forgotten. It seemed incredible now, with the small warm hand in his, and the sense of comradeship which the nearness of her, the friendly light in her eyes, conveyed, that ever it had been a matter of indifference to him whether he saw her again.

There was not a shadow of doubt as to his pleasure at the moment.

She drew her hand away.

"The management may be watching me," she said.

"Oh bother! There is always some one watching you," he returned. "No matter! We will have our talk out where no one can watch us save the stars. It's jolly that you're here... I'm not going to lose sight of you again."

He arranged to meet her that evening and parted from her feeling extraordinarily dated. He looked back when he had paid his score and was pa.s.sing out to smile across the room at her. Then he pushed the swing door and emerged upon the pavement to discover his late companions, rather silent and faintly displeased, waiting by the kerb for him.

"Well, we can never go in there again!" Rosie said, in tones charged with inner meaning.

It was so obvious that she wanted him to inquire the reason for this taboo that he did not ask it; instead he remarked cheerfully:

"That's the biggest surprise I've had--and about the pleasantest. I never expected to run across Miss Upton like that."

"We didn't imagine you knew her," May said. "When she served us I saw who it was, but of course one couldn't speak to her. She ought not to stay in Cape Town."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Oh! there's nothing exactly against her--except of course, the connexion. Her father embezzled money and went to prison. He was in dad's firm. We knew her quite well at one time. But it was an awful disgrace; one couldn't go on knowing them. You must acknowledge it is impossible for us. Mother wouldn't like us to talk to her."

"No," he said; "I don't suppose she would."

"You didn't know about her father, of course," Rosie said.

"Oh! yes, I did. She told me herself--not the details, but the bald facts."

"Really! I'm surprised at that. A man doesn't need to be so particular, perhaps; but it wouldn't do for us to be seen talking to her."

"My friendship dates since her misfortunes," he explained. "I can't believe that I could have respected her more had I known her in her prosperous days. The fact that her father was imprisoned, apart from my sympathy with her on that account, doesn't affect me. I can't stay now, or I could talk to you for an hour on the immorality of injustice. I'll come out to your place some day, and we'll take it for a subject for debate."

"The things you say!" Rosie exclaimed, divided between resentment and an earnest desire to prevent a breach.

They parted on less cordial terms than usual, feeling it necessary to maintain their displeasure. As May observed, Mr Matheson should be made aware that he must not obtrude his common acquaintances upon them.

"As long as he keeps his shop-girls in the background I suppose it's all right," she said.

"Men are funny animals," was Rosie's comment.

Matheson, with his thoughts revolving round his discovery and the Aplin girls' revelations, went to Macfarlane for information. Macfarlane, having spent ten years in Cape Town, was fairly well qualified to give it. The most interesting events in the histories of many of the inhabitants were known to him, and the Upton affair was barely five years old.

He had forgotten the details of the case, he said. So far as he could remember it was just a sordid tale of common embezzlement. The man was weak--one of those people with a moral kink. There was no apparent reason why he should appropriate the firm's money; he had a decent salary, and a decent wife who certainly never led him into extravagance.

When he came out of prison he went under altogether, and the home was broken up. He had no idea what had become of the family. There was only one girl, and the boys were old enough now to be doing for themselves.

"I can tell you where Miss Upton is," Matheson said, "because I happened to know her."

He explained how and where he had met her that morning. Macfarlane was interested.

"It's a come down," he said, "and a beastly shame. That's the worst of it when these sort of things happen, the family goes under with the man."

"I don't fancy there is much fear of Miss Upton going under," Matheson returned, and became so earnest and eager in his championship as to provoke Macfarlane's curiosity.

"She is so plucky and clever... one of the bravest and honestest little souls!"

"Well," observed Macfarlane drily, "I haven't seen her since she was an ugly little flapper with a predilection for snubbing people, and a partiality for animals. You'll lose the chance of a marriage of convenience, my boy, if you let Rosie see you trotting her about."

Matheson laughed.

"She and May were with me this morning, and both were rather scandalised at my friendship with a girl in a cafe," he said.

"That's finished anyhow," Macfarlane a.s.serted grimly. "You'll never be asked to stretch your legs under the old man's mahogany again, and you won't swagger back from tennis any more with Rosie's favours in your coat Considering your ambitions, which you confided to me recently, I think you are playing the fool with your prospects."

"I've got to get there on my own," Matheson answered. "I've no prejudice against my wife lending me a helping hand, but I don't want to depend on her entirely for a leg up."