"Someone _will_ have you--shall we say, as secretary? Do you know typewriting or shorthand?"
Loveland reluctantly answered that he did not.
"Dear me! The secretaryship won"t answer then, I"m afraid. Are you anything of a linguist?"
"Can"t speak a word of any language but my own--except a hotch potch of French. The little Latin I ever had is practically gone."
"What a pity! Are you good at mathematics?"
"I generally add up on my fingers. Never could remember the multiplication table."
"History, then? Could you help a friend of mine who"s writing a novel on the fifteenth century?"
"All I know about the fifteenth century, that I can think of at this moment, is that it wasn"t the fourteenth--or the sixteenth. Oh, I"m afraid I"m no good, after all, Miss Dearmer. You"ll have to give me up as a bad job, and chuck me into gaol for the theft of Cremer"s play.
I"ve never had any proper education."
"Haven"t you? I"m not so sure about that," said Lesley, with an inflection in her voice that Val couldn"t quite understand. "And I"m not sure you haven"t learnt your lesson rather well."
"Which one?" enquired Loveland, ruefully; but she could not have understood the question, for she went on talking as if it had not been asked.
"You must be able to do _something_," she said, her dimples well in control.
"You"ve seen that I can"t act, but--well, I can shoot pretty straight."
"Ah, I don"t know anyone who keeps a shooting gallery."
"And ride decently."
"Nor anyone who wants a riding master. Oh, but--now can you drive a motor-car?"
"Yes," said Loveland.
"Good. Do you understand the mechanism of cars?"
"Of two or three. As well as--or better than most chauffeurs, I think, if that isn"t being conceited again."
"I"m not finding fault with you tonight for conceit. Would you take quite a temporary job as chauffeur, in--in a private family, with a sal--oh, I might as well say wages! of $25 a week and your board and lodging besides?"
"If I could get the first week in advance, I might send everybody to Chicago--with what we"ve got out of the stolen play," Loveland said.
"Never mind the stolen play. In Sidney Cremer"s name, I forgive you all, now I know the circ.u.mstances. No more to be said about that."
"You must know him very well indeed, to speak for him so positively,"
broke in Loveland, gloomily.
"I do," said Lesley. "You can have the first week"s wages in advance, and the second, too. The car"s a Gloria."
"My last was a Gloria."
"You mean--Lord Loveland"s?"
"Oh, yes, I mean Lord Loveland"s. Some men do make chauffeurs of their valets and vice versa. And you know, the real Loveland was hard up--or thought he was. I begin to see now, that he didn"t know what being hard up meant."
"Even English peers can live and learn--while they"re young, I suppose,"
said Lesley, meditatively. "But we were talking about you, weren"t we?
Do you accept the situation I offer you?"
"_You_ offer?"
"Well, for my friend, Sidney Cremer. Sidney has just bought a new car, and sent it to us. I"m allowed to use it for awhile, as much as I like."
"He"s coming, then?"
"We expect Sidney to be with us for some time--with my aunt and me."
"I"m hanged if I"ll be his servant!" Val exclaimed, with something of his old vehemence.
"Oh! Very well, Mr. Gordon. I thought you were really in earnest, or I wouldn"t have made the suggestion."
"So I am. But----"
"There"s often a "_but_" in such cases, isn"t there? I admit it wouldn"t be a particularly agreeable position for a man who has--er--"
"Posed as a peer," Loveland finished for her, bitterly.
"You put the words into my mouth. I was going to say--you seemed so anxious to do something to help the others, and this is the only thing I can think of by which you could make money quickly and----"
Ed Binney"s pale face and Lillie"s wistful eyes seemed to float in the air before the unhappy Loveland. "Very well," he said, "I will be Mr.
Cremer"s chauffeur. I"ve taken his play. I"ll take his money; I"ll take his food; I"ll live under his roof, and I"ll serve him as well as I can.
And I"ll only ask you to believe one decent thing of me, Miss Dearmer: that it isn"t for my own sake."
"It will be my food you eat," said Lesley, sweetly. "And my roof which will give you shelter."
Loveland drew in his breath hard, as they looked at each other. Yes, it would be her roof, and her food. That was the worse for him, because it made it more and more plain that Sidney Cremer must be very near and dear to her.
"It"s quite settled, then?" she asked pleasantly.
"It"s quite settled," he echoed. "For a fortnight."
There were no dimples at play in Lesley"s cheeks; but one might almost have said that her eyes laughed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A Protege of Miss Dearmer"s