"I--er----"
I didn"t know what to say. I bit into one of the little cakes that seemed all chocolate and solidity outside. Inside it was all cream and soft-heartedness and sherry flavouring, and it melted over on to the crisp cloth.
"There, now, look what a mess you"re making," commented the young Irishman with the undeservedly pleasant voice. "Try one of these almondy fellows that you can see what you"re doing with. To return to you and your masquerade as Miss Million"s maid----"
"It is not a masquerade," I explained with dignity. "I don"t know what you mean by your--I am in Miss Million"s service. I am her maid!"
"Have some strawberries and cream. Really fine strawberries, these,"
interpolated the Honourable Jim. "What was I saying--you her maid?
Wouldn"t it be just as sensible if I myself were to go and get myself taken on as valet by that other young fellow that was sitting there at tea in her rooms yesterday--the bank manager, or whatever he was?
Curious idea to have a deaf-and-dumb chap as a manager."
Here I really had to bite my lips not to laugh again. Certainly poor Mr.
Brace had descended, like Mr. Toots, into a well of silence for the whole of that afternoon. I daresay he thought the more.
"When I heard at the Cecil that all those boxes and things belonged to the very young lady with her maid, naturally enough I thought I knew which of the two was the mistress," pursued the Honourable Jim in a sort of spoken reverie, eating strawberries and cream with the gusto of a schoolgirl. "Then when I came up and saw the wrong one waiting on the other, and looking like a picture in her ap.r.o.n----"
"Please don"t say those things to me," I interrupted haughtily.
"Why not?"
"Because I don"t like it."
"It"s a queer disposition the Lovelace women must be of, then. Different from the others. To take offence? To shy at the sound of a man"s voice saying how sweet they look in something they"ve got new to wear? I will remember that," said Mr. Burke, still in that tone of reverie. With every word he spoke I longed more ardently to feel very angry with this young man. Yet every word seemed to make genuine anger more impossible.
Sitting there over his strawberries and cream, he looked like some huge, irresponsible, and quite likeable boy. I had to listen to him. He went on: "Then when I saw you as the maid, I thought you"d just changed places for a joke. I made sure "twas you that were Miss Million."
"What?" I cried.
For now I really was angry.
It was the same kind of hot, unreasonable, sn.o.bbish anger that surged all over me when Million (my mistress) began to lose her habit of saying "Miss," and of speaking to me as if I"d come from some better world.
Utterly foolish and useless anger, in the circ.u.mstances. Still, there it was. I flushed with indignation. I looked straight at the Honourable Jim Burke as I said furiously: "Then you really took me--me!--for the niece of that dreadful old--of that old man in Chicago?"
"I did. But, remember," said Mr. Burke, "I"d never set eyes on that old man."
"Ah! You admit that, then," I said triumphantly and accusingly, "in spite of all that long story to Miss Million. You admit yourself that it was all a make-up! What do you suppose Miss Million will say to that?"
The young fortune-hunter looked at me with perfect calm and said: "Who"s to tell her that I admitted I"d never seen her old uncle?"
"To tell her? Why!" I took up. "Her maid! Supposing I go and tell her----"
"Ah, but don"t you see? I"m not supposing any such thing," said Mr.
Burke. "You"ll never tell, Miss Lovelace."
"How d"you know?"
"I know," he said. "Don"t I know that you"d never sneak?"
And, of course, this was so true. Equally, of course, I was pleased and annoyed with him at the same time for knowing it. I frowned and stared away down Bond Street. Then I turned to him again and said: "You said to me yesterday, "What is your game?""
"So I did. But now that I"ve found out you"re not the heiress herself, I know what your game is."
"What?"
"The same as mine," declared this amazing young fortune-hunter, very simply. "Neither of us has a penny. So we both "go where money is."
Isn"t that it, now?"
"No, no!" I said hotly. "You are hatching up an introduction to Miss Million, deceiving her, laughing at her, plotting against her, I expect.
I"m just an ordinary lady"s-maid to her, earning my wages."
"By the powers, they"ll take some earning before you"re done,"
prophesied the young Irishman, laughing, "mark my words. You"ll have your work cut out for you, minding that child let loose with its hands full of fireworks. I feel for you, you poor little girl. I do, indeed."
"Really. You--you don"t behave as if you did. People like you won"t make my "work" any easier," I told him severely. "You know you are simply turning Miss Million"s head, Mr. Burke."
"Oh, you wrong me there," he said solemnly.
"I don"t wrong you at all. I see through you perfectly," I said. And I did. His mouth might be perfectly grave, but blue imps were dancing in his eyes. "You are flattering and dazzling poor Mi--my mistress, just because she has never met any one like you before!"
"Ah! You"ve met so many of us unprincipled men of the world!" sighed Mr.
Burke. "I daren"t hope to impose on your experience, Miss Lovelace.
(We"ll have two lemon water ices, please"--to the waitress.)
"No, but you are imposing on her," I scolded him, "with your--your stories of knowing her uncle, and all that. And now you"re----"
"Well, what are my other crimes?"
I took breath and said: "You"re asking her out for drives in that coach of yours----"
"Would to Heaven it were my coach," sighed Lord Ballyneck"s youngest son. "It belongs to my good pal Leo Rosencranz, that turn-out! I am merely----"
"What I want to know is," I broke in very severely, "where is all this going to lead to?"
He took the wafer off his ice before replying. Then he said very mildly: "Brighton, I thought."
Isn"t an Irishman the most hopeless sort of person to whom to try to talk sense? Particularly angry sense!
"I don"t mean the coach-drive," I said crossly. "You knew that, Mr.
Burke. I mean your acquaintance with my employer. Where is that going to lead to?"
"I hope it"s going to lead to mutual benefits," announced the Honourable Jim briskly. "Now, since you"re asking me my intentions like this, I"ll tell them to you. I"ve never before had the knife laid to my throat like this, and by a bit of a chestnut-haired girl, too! Well, I intend to see a good deal of Miss Million. I shall introduce to her a lot of people who"ll be useful, one way and another. Haven"t I sent two friends of mine to call on her this afternoon?"
"Have you?" I said.
So that was the reason Million insisted on my taking the afternoon off!
She didn"t intend me to see his friends! I wondered who they were.
Mr. Burke went on: "Between ourselves, I intend to be a sort of Cook"s guide through life to your young friend--your employer, Miss Million. A young woman in her position simply can"t do without some philanthropist to show her the ropes. Perhaps she began by thinking you might be able to do that, Miss--Smith?" he laughed softly. He said: "But I shall soon have her turning to me for guidance as naturally as a needle turns to the north. I tell you I"m the very man to help a forlorn orphan who doesn"t know what to do with a fortune. Money, by Ishtar! How well I know where to take it! Pity I never have a stiver of my own to do it with!"