And then the gloves found by Addy had all holes in them. And at that Laura stamped her foot and said, "d.a.m.n!"
The odds against Laura"s getting off were frightful.
But she was putting on her hat. She was really ready just as Tanqueray"s voice was heard calling on the stairs, "You must hurry up if you want to catch that train." And now they had to deal seriously with Mr. Gunning, who stood expectant, holding his hat and stick.
"Good-bye, Papa dear," said she.
"Am I not to come, too?" said Mr. Gunning.
"Not to-day, dear."
She was kissing him while Jane and Nina waited in the open doorway.
Their eyes signed to her to be brave and follow them. But Laura lingered.
Prothero looked at Laura, and Mr. Gunning looked at Prothero. His terrible idea had come back to him at the sight of the young man, risen, and standing beside Laura for departure.
"Are you going to take my little girl away from me?" he said.
"Poor little Papa, of course he isn"t. I"m going with Jane, and Nina.
You know Nina?"
"And who," he cried, "is going to take me for my walk?"
He had her there. She wavered.
"Addy"s coming in to give you your tea. You like Addy." (He bowed to Miss Ranger with a supreme courtesy.) "And I"ll be back in time to see you in your little bed."
She ran off. Addy Ranger took Mr. Gunning very tenderly by the arm and led him to the stairs to see her go.
Outside on the pavement Tanqueray gave way to irritation.
"If," said he, "it would only please Heaven to take that old gentleman to itself."
"It won"t," said Nina.
"How she would hate us if she heard us," said Jane.
"There ought to be somebody to take care of "im," said Rose, moved to compa.s.sion. ""E might go off in a fit any day. She can"t be easy when "e"s left."
"He _must_ be left," said Tanqueray with ferocity.
"Here she is," said Jane.
There she was; and there, too, was her family. For, at the sight of Laura running down-stairs with Prothero after her, Mr. Gunning broke loose from Addy"s arm and followed her, perilously followed her. Addy was only just in time to draw him back from the hall door as Prothero closed it.
And then little Laura, outside, heard a cry as of a thing trapped, and betrayed, and utterly abandoned.
"I can"t go," she cried. "He thinks I"m leaving him--that I"m never coming back. He always thinks it."
"You know," said Nina, "he never thinks anything for more than five minutes."
"I know--but----"
Nina caught her by the shoulder. "You stupid Kiddy, you must forget him when he isn"t there."
"But he _is_ there," said Laura. "I can"t leave him."
Between her eyes and Prothero"s there pa.s.sed a look of eternal patience and despair. Rose saw it. She saw how it was with them, and she saw what she could do. She turned back to the door.
"You go," she said. "I"ll stay with him."
From the set of her little chin you saw that protest and argument were useless.
"I can take care of him," she said. "I know how."
And as she said it there came into her face a soft flame of joy. For Tanqueray was looking at her, and smiling as he used to smile in the days when he adored her. He was thinking in this moment how adorable she was.
"You may as well let her," he said. "She isn"t happy if she can"t take care of somebody."
And, as they wondered at her, the door opened and closed again on Rose and her white blouse.
XXVII
They found Brodrick waiting for them at the station. Imperturbable, on the platform, he seemed to be holding in leash the Wendover train whose engines were throbbing for flight.
Prothero suffered, painfully, the inevitable introduction. Tanqueray had told him that if he still wanted work on the papers Brodrick was his man. Brodrick had an idea. On the long hill-road going up from Wendover station Prothero, at Tanqueray"s suggestion, tried to make himself as civil as possible to Miss Holland.
Tentatively and with infinite precautions Jane laid before him Brodrick"s idea. The War Correspondent of the "Morning Telegraph" was coming home invalided from Manchuria. She understood that his place would be offered to Mr. Prothero. Would he care to take it?
He did not answer.
She merely laid the idea before him to look at. He must weigh, she said, the dangers and the risks. From the expression of his face she gathered that these were the last things he would weigh.
And yet he hesitated. She looked at him. His eyes were following the movements of Laura Gunning where, well in front of them, the marvellous Kiddy, in the first wildness of her release from paragraphs, darted and plunged and leaped into the hedges.
Jane allowed some moments to lapse before she spoke again. The war, she said, would not last for ever; and if he took this berth, it would lead almost certainly to a regular job on the "Telegraph" at home.
He saw all that, he said, and he was profoundly grateful. His eyes, as they turned to her, showed for a moment a film of tears. Then they wandered from her.
He asked if he might think it over and let her know.
"When," she said, "can you let me know?"
"I think," he said, "probably, before the end of the day."