Nevertheless she came to him, and stood on the gra.s.s outside the window.
The lamplight from within shone on her upturned face with its saucy, confiding smile. Her head was uncovered and gleamed golden in the radiance. She was wearing a very ancient fur cloak belonging to her mother, and she glowed like a rose in the sombre drapery.
Piers stooped to her with hands invitingly outstretched. "Come along, Pixie! We shan"t eat you, and I"ll take you home on my shoulder afterwards and see you don"t get copped."
She uttered a delighted little laugh, and went upwards into his hold like a sc.r.a.p of floating thistledown.
He lifted her high in his arms, crossed the room with her, and set her down before the old man who still sat at the table, sardonically watching. "Miss Gracie Lorimer!" he said.
"Hullo, child!" growled Sir Beverley.
Gracie looked at him with sparkling, adventurous eyes. As she had told Piers, she was not a bit afraid. After the briefest pause she held out her hand with charming _insouciance_.
"How do you do?" she said.
Sir Beverley slowly took the hand, and pulled her towards him, gazing at her from under his black brows with a piercing scrutiny that would have terrified a more timid child.
Timidity however was not one of Gracie"s weaknesses. She gave him a friendly smile, and waited without the smallest sign of uneasiness for him to speak.
"What have you come here for?" he demanded gruffly at length.
"I"ll tell you," said Gracie readily. She went close to him, confidingly close, looking straight into the formidable grey eyes. "You see, it was my idea. Pat didn"t want to come, but I made him."
"Forward young minx!" commented Sir Beverley.
Gracie laughed at the compliment.
Piers, smoking his cigarette behind her, stood ready to take her part, but quite obviously she was fully equal to the occasion.
"Yes, I know," she agreed, with disarming amiability. "But it wouldn"t have mattered a bit if you hadn"t found out who it was. You won"t tell anyone, will you?"
"Why not?" demanded Sir Beverley.
Gracie pulled down her red lips, and cast up her dancing eyes. "There"d be such a scandal," she said.
Piers broke into an involuntary laugh, and Sir Beverley"s thin lips twitched in a reluctant smile.
"You"re a saucy little baggage!" he observed. "Well, get on! Let"s hear what you"ve come for! Cadging money, I"ll be bound."
Gracie nodded in eager confirmation of this suggestion. "That"s just it!"
she said. "And that"s where the scandal would come in if you told. You see, poor children can go round squalling carols to their hearts" content for pennies, but children like us who want pennies just as much haven"t any way of getting them. We mayn"t carry hand-bags, or open carriage-doors, or turn cart-wheels, or--or do anything to earn a living.
It"s hard luck, you know."
"Beastly shame!" said Piers.
Sir Beverley scowled at him. "You needn"t stick your oar in. Go and shut the window, do you hear? Now, child, let"s have the truth, so far as any female is capable of speaking it! You"ve come here for pennies, you say. Don"t you know that"s a form of begging? And begging is breaking the law."
"I often do that," said Grade, quite undismayed. "So would you, if you were me. I expect you did too when you were young."
"I!" Sir Beverley uttered a harsh laugh, and released the child"s hand.
"So you break the law, do you?" he said. "How often?"
Gracie"s laugh followed his like a silvery echo. "I shan"t tell you "cos you"re a magistrate. But we weren"t really begging, Pat and I. At least it wasn"t for ourselves."
"Oh, of course not!" said Sir Beverley.
She looked at him with her clear eyes, unconscious of irony. "No. We wanted to buy a pair of gloves for someone for Christmas. And nice gloves cost such a lot, don"t they? And we hadn"t got more than tenpence-halfpenny among us. So I said I"d think of a plan to get more.
And--that was the plan," ended Grade, with her sweetest smile.
"I see," said Sir Beverley, with his eyes still fixed immovably upon her.
"And what made you come here?"
"Oh, we came here just because of Piers," said Grade, without hesitation.
"You see, he"s a great friend of ours."
"Is he?" said Sir Beverley. "And so you think you"ll get what you can out of him, eh?"
"Sir!" said Piers sharply.
"Be quiet, Piers!" ordered his grandfather testily. "Who spoke to you?
Well, madam, continue! How much do you consider him good for?"
Piers pulled a coin impetuously from his pocket and slapped it down on the table in front of Grade. "There you are, Pixie!" he said. "I"m good for that."
Gracie stared at the coin with widening eyes, not offering to touch it.
"Oh, Piers!" she said, with a long indrawn breath. "It"s a whole sovereign! Oh no!"
He laughed a reckless laugh, while over her head his eyes challenged his grandfather"s. "That"s all right, Piccaninny," he said lightly. "Put it in your pocket! And I"ll come round with the car to-morrow and run you into Wardenhurst to buy those gloves."
But Gracie shook her head. "Gloves don"t cost all that," she said practically. "And besides, you won"t have any left for yourself. Fancy giving away a whole sovereign at a time!" She addressed Sir Beverley. "It seems almost a tempting of Providence, doesn"t it!"
"The deed of a fool!" said Sir Beverley.
But Piers, with a sudden hardening of the jaw, stooped over Gracie. "Take it!" he said. "I wish it."
She looked up at him. "No, Piers; I mustn"t really. It"s ever so nice of you." She rubbed her golden head against his shoulder caressingly.
"Please don"t be cross! I do thank you--awfully. But I don"t want it.
Really, I don"t."
"Rot!" said Piers. "Do as I tell you! Take it!"
Gracie turned to Sir Beverley. "I can"t, can I? Tell him I can"t!"
But Piers was not to be thwarted. With a sudden dive he seized the coin and without ceremony swept Gracie"s hair from her shoulders and dropped it down the back of her neck.
"There!" he said, slipping his hands over her arms and holding her while she squealed and writhed. "It"s quite beyond reach. You can"t in decency return it now. It"s no good wriggling. You won"t get it up again unless you stand on your head."
"You"re horrid--horrid!" protested Gracie; but she reached back and kissed him notwithstanding. "Thank you ever so much. I hope I shan"t lose it. But I don"t know what I shall do with it all. It"s quite dreadful to think of. Please don"t be cross with him!" she said to Sir Beverley.