"I"m not going to listen any longer," she cried at last, "to your silly old early Victorian plat.i.tudes!"
"And I," I retorted, "am not going to be browbeaten in my own home by one-foot-nothing of crankiness and chiffon."
So, laughingly, we parted for the night, the best of friends. If only, I thought, she could sweep her head clear of Adrian, what a fascinating little person she might be. And I understood how it had come to pa.s.s that our hulking old ogre had fallen in love with her so desperately.
The next morning I was in the garden, superintending the planting of some roses in a new, bed, when Doria, in hat and furs, came through my library window, and sang out a good-bye. I hurried to her.
"Surely not going already? I thought you were at least staying to lunch."
No; she had to get back to town. The car, ordered by Barbara, was waiting to take her to the station.
"I"ll see you into the train," said I.
"Oh, please don"t trouble."
"I will trouble," I laughed, and I accompanied her down the slope to the front door where stood Barbara by the car and Franklin with the luggage.
Doria and I drove to the station. For the few minutes before the train came in we walked up and down the platform. She was in high spirits, full of jest and laughter. An unwonted flush in her cheeks and a brightness in her deep eyes rendered her perfectly captivating.
"I haven"t seen you looking so well and so pretty for ever such a long time," I said.
The flush deepened. "You and Barbara have done me all the good in the world. You always do. Northlands is a sort of Fontaine de Jouvence for weary people."
That was as graceful as could be. And when she shook hands with me a short while afterwards through the carriage window, she thanked me for our long-sufferance with more spontaneous cordiality than she had ever before exhibited. I returned to my roses, feeling that, after all, we had done something to help the poor little lady on her way. If I had been a cat, I should have purred. After an hour or so, Barbara summoned me from my contemplative occupation.
"Yes, dear?" said I, at the library window.
"Have you written to Rogers?"
Rogers was a plumber.
"He"s a degraded wretch," said I, "and unworthy of receiving a letter from a clean-minded man."
"Meanwhile," said Barbara, "the servants" bathroom continues to be unusable."
"Good G.o.d!" said I, "does Rogers hold the cleanliness of this household in his awful hands?"
"He does."
"Then I will sink my pride and write to him."
"Write now," said Barbara, leading me to my chair. "You ought to have done it three days ago."
So with three days" bathlessness of my domestic staff upon my conscience, and with Barbara at my elbow, I wrote my summons. I turned in my chair, holding it up in my hand.
"Is this sufficiently dignified and imperious?"
I began to declaim it. "Sir, it has been brought to my notice that the pipes--". I broke off short. "Hullo!" said I, my eyes on the wall, "what has become of the key of Jaffery"s flat?"
There was the bra.s.s-headed nail on which I had hung it, impertinently and nakedly bright. The labelled key had vanished.
"You"ve got it in your pocket, as usual," said Barbara.
I may say that I have a habit of losing things and setting the household from the butler to the lower myrmidons of the kitchen in frantic search, and calling in gardeners and chauffeurs and nurses and wives and children to help, only to discover that I have had the wretched object in my pocket all the time. So accustomed is Barbara to this wolf-cry that if I came up to her without my head and informed her that I had lost it, she would be profoundly sceptical.
But this time I was blameless. "I haven"t touched it," I declared, "and I saw it this morning."
"I don"t know about this morning," said Barbara. "But I grant you it was there yesterday evening, because Doria drew our attention to it."
"Doria!" I cried, and I rose, with mouth agape, and our eyes met in a sudden stare.
"Good Heavens! do you think she has taken it?"
"Who else?" said I. "She came out from here to say good-bye to me in the garden. She had the opportunity. She was preternaturally animated and demonstrative at the station--your s.e.x"s little guileful way ever since the world began. She had the stolen key about her. She"s going straight to Jaffery"s flat to hunt for those ma.n.u.scripts."
"Well, let her," said Barbara. "We know she can"t find them, because they don"t exist."
"But, my darling Barbara," I cried, "everything else does. And everything else is there. And there"s not a blessed thing locked up in the place!"
"Do you mean--?" she cried aghast.
"Yes, I do. I must get up to town at once and stop her."
"I"ll come with you," said Barbara.
So once more, on altruistic errand, I motored post-haste to London. We alighted at St. Quentin"s Mansions. My friend the porter came out to receive us.
"Has a lady been here with a key of Mr. Chayne"s flat?"
"No, sir, not to my knowledge."
We drew breaths of relief. Our journey had been something of a strain.
"Thank goodness!" said Barbara.
"Should a lady come, don"t allow her to enter the flat," said I.
[Ill.u.s.tration: And there, in a wilderness of ransacked drawers and strewn papers, ... lay a tiny, black, moaning heap of a woman.]
"I shouldn"t give a strange lady entrance in any case," said the porter.
"Good!" said I, and I was about to go. But Barbara, with her ready common-sense, took me aside and whispered:
"Why not take all these compromising ma.n.u.scripts home with us?"
In my letter case I had the half-forgotten power of attorney that Jaffery had given me at Havre. I shewed it to the porter.
"I want to get some things out of Mr. Chayne"s flat."