By Elsie's coming into it, Tinker's life was changed. At first she was not only a companion, she was an occupation. A score of little arrangements to secure her greater comfort had to be made, each of them after careful consideration. He was no longer dull: they were together from morning till night; and he found in her a considerable aptitude for the post of lieutenant—to a Pirate Captain, a Smuggler, a Brigand Chief, or a South African Scout. She kept him out of mischief as far as he could be kept out of mischief: the demands her welfare made upon his intelligence prevented his devoting it to the elaboration of ingenious schemes for the discomfiture of his fellow-creatures; and he had to think twice before he flung himself into any casual piece of mischief which presented itself, lest he should involve her in disastrous consequences. On second thoughts he generally refrained with regret. The one practice he did not suffer to fall into desuetude was his daily bolt into the Salles de Jeu; of that she could always be a secure and interested spectator.
For her part, she was entirely happy; she had been so long starved of care and affection that, now she had them, she wanted nothing more; they filled her life.
Taking his responsibility thus seriously, Tinker was greatly exercised in mind whether he should get her a maid or a governess; he could not afford both. Elsie, with absolute conviction, declared that she needed neither; that all she wanted was someone to brush her hair, and she was sure that he did that far better than anyone else would.
Tinker shook his head. "One has to be educated, don't you know?" he said. "Look at me."
It was one of his weaknesses to cherish the conviction that in the matter of learning he lacked nothing, though had he been confronted by even the vulgarest fraction, he would have been quite helpless.
Having at last made up his mind, he sought out Sir Tancred, and said with a very serious air, "I've been thinking it over, sir, and I've come to the conclusion that I ought to get Elsie a governess."
My dear Tinker, said his father, "if you add to our household at your present rate, I foresee myself buying a caravan, and traversing Europe in state."
Like a circus, said Tinker, brightening. "It would be great fun—for a while. I think," he added thoughtfully, "that I could brighten Europe up a bit."
I do not doubt it, said Sir Tancred politely.
Well, you see, sir, it's like this, said Tinker. "When I adopted Elsie you said that I was to take all responsibility; and I think I ought to look after her education; it's no good adopting sisters by halves."
You are right, of course, said Sir Tancred. "But I'm sorry for you. For a boy of nearly twelve, your knowledge of the things taught by governesses is small. Your spelling, now, it is—shall we say phonetic?"
I don't think a gentleman ought to spell too well any more than he ought to speak French with too good an accent, said Tinker firmly.
There's a good deal in what you say, said Sir Tancred. "But I'm afraid that when Elsie has learnt geography, say, the position of Schleswig-Holstein and Roumania and Leeds, and other such places to which we should never dream of going, she might look down on you for only knowing the towns on the great railways of Europe and America, and the steamer routes of the world."
She might. But I don't think she's like that, though, of course, with a girl you never can tell. I think it's more likely she would want to teach me where they are. But she ought to be educated, and I must chance it.
Well, if you ought, you must, said Sir Tancred. "But one thing I do beg of you; do not have her taught the piano—the barrel-organ if you like, but not the piano."
No; I won't. A piano would be so awkward to move about—it would want a van to itself.
I was thinking, rather, of the peculiar noises it makes in the hands of the inexperienced, said Sir Tancred.
I know, said Tinker in a tone of genuine sympathy.
Tinker went to Elsie, whom he had left in the gardens of the Casino, and told her that his father had given him leave to get her a governess. On hearing that the matter was so near accomplishment, her face fell, and she said, "Don't—don't you think I ought to help choose her?"
It wouldn't be regular, said Tinker firmly.
After déjeuner he caught a train to Nice, and went straight to Madame Butler, that stay of those who seek maids, companions, nurses, or governesses on the Riviera. He sent in his card, and was straightway ushered into the office where she received her clients. She was sitting at a desk, and by one of the windows sat a very pretty young lady, who looked as if she were waiting to interview a possible employee. A certain surprise showed itself on the face of Madame Butler at the sight of Tinker; she had plainly expected a client of more mature years.
Tinker bowed, and sat down in the chair by the desk in which clients sat and set forth their needs.
You wished to see me—on business? said Madame Butler with some hesitation.
Yes, said Tinker. "I want a governess for my sister—my adopted sister. I'm responsible for her, and I've decided that she must be educated. I told my father, Sir Tancred Beauleigh, and he gave me leave to get her a governess. So I came to you."
Yes, said Madame Butler, smiling, "and what kind of a governess do you want?"
The pretty young lady, who had been regarding Tinker with smiling interest, turned away with the proper delicacy, and looked out of the window.
Tinker's face wore a very serious, almost anxious, air. "I've worked it out carefully," he said. "Elsie's ten years old, two years younger than I am, and there is no need for her governess to have degrees or certificates or that kind of thing. She will only have to teach her to write nicely and do sums—not fractions, of course—useful sums, and some needlework, and look after her when I'm not about. So I want a lady, young, and English; and I should like her to be a bit of a sportswoman, don't you know. I mean," he added in careful explanation, "I should like her to be cheerful and good-natured, and not fussy about the things that really don't matter."
I think I know the kind of governess you want, said Madame Butler. She ran her eye over two or three pages of her ledger and added, "But I'm very much afraid that I haven't one of that kind on my books at present."
That's a pity, said Tinker. "Should I have long to wait?"
I'm afraid you might. People chiefly want ladles with certificates and degrees, so the others don't offer themselves.
The pretty young lady turned from the window with the quickness of one suddenly making up her mind.
How should I do? she said in a charming voice.
Madame Butler turned towards her quickly with raised eyebrows, but said nothing. Tinker turned, too, and his face lighted up with an angelic smile. He looked at the pretty young lady carefully, and then at the pretty young lady's tailor-made gown, and the smile faded out of his face.
I'm afraid, he said sorrowfully, "you would be too expensive."
What salary were you thinking of giving? she said with a brisk, businesslike directness.
Thirty pounds a year, said Tinker; and then he added hastily, "Of course it's very little; but really the work would be quite light, and we should try and make things pleasant for her."
But surely, for a governess without certificates, that is a very good salary; isn't it, Madame Butler?
It is, indeed, said Madame Butler.
It can't be, really, said Tinker. "But I suppose people are mean."
Well, it would satisfy me, said the pretty young lady. "But unfortunately I am an American, and you want an Englishwoman."
I only don't want a foreigner, said Tinker. "I should be awfully pleased if you would take the post."
The pleasure will be mine, said the pretty young lady. "And about references? I'm afraid I cannot get them in less than ten days."
Pardon, said Tinker. "Your face, if you will excuse my saying so, is reference enough."
The pretty young lady flushed with pleasure, and said, "That is very nice of you, but your father might think them necessary."
This is my show—I mean, this matter is entirely in my hands; I look after Elsie altogether. And I think we might consider it settled. My name is Hildebrand Anne Beauleigh.
Oh, you are the boy who borrowed the flying-machine!
Tinker was charmed that she should take the right view of the matter; he found that so many people, including the bulk of the English, American, and Continental Press, were disposed, in an unintelligent way, to regard him as having stolen it.
Yes, he said.
My name is Dorothy Rayner.
Rayner, said Tinker with sudden alertness. "There is an American millionaire called Rainer."
I spell my name with a y, said Dorothy quickly.
Madame Butler once more raised her eyebrows.
Well, when will you come to us? We are staying at the Hôtel des Princes at Monte Carlo.
To-day is Wednesday. Shall we say Saturday morning?
Yes, that will do very well. Oh, by the way, I was quite forgetting—about music.
I'm afraid, said Dorothy, and her face fell, "I can't teach music."
That's all right, said Tinker cheerfully. "My father was terribly afraid that anyone I got would want to."
He explained to Dorothy their nomadic fashion of life, paid Madame Butler her fee, bade them good-bye, and went his way.
On his return he found Elsie full of anxious curiosity, but his account of his find set her mind at rest. He ended by saying, "It will be awfully nice for you, don't you know? She looked as though she would let you kiss her as often as you wanted to."
But I shall kiss you just the same, night and morning, said Elsie firmly.
Of course, of course, said Tinker quickly, and by a manful effort he kept the brightness in his face.
He told his father that he had found a governess.
References all right? said Sir Tancred.
Yes, she carries them about with her, said Tinker diplomatically.
I suppose I ought to see them, don't you think?
You will, said Tinker.
On her arrival on Saturday morning Dorothy found the children awaiting her on the steps of the hotel; and to Tinker's extreme satisfaction, she at once kissed Elsie. When she had been taken to her room, which was next to Elsie's, and her trunks had been brought up, it was time to go to déjeuner, and Tinker conducted her to the restaurant. They found Sir Tancred and Lord Crosland already at table; they rose at the sight of Dorothy, and Tinker introduced them to her gravely. Sir Tancred was naturally surprised at being suddenly confronted by a startling vision of beauty, when he had expected an ordinary young fresh-coloured, good-natured Englishwoman. But for all the change worked in his face by that surprise he might have been confronted by a vision of corkscrew curls. Lord Crosland, however, so far forgot the proper dignity of a peer as to kick Tinker gently under the table. Tinker looked at him with a pained and disapproving air.
Dorothy was even more surprised by the sight of Sir Tancred. She had given the matter little thought, but had supposed that she would find Tinker's father a sedate man of some fifty summers. When she found him a young man of thirty, and exceedingly handsome and distinguished at that, she was invaded by no slight doubt as to the wisdom of indulging the spirit of whim which had led her to take the post of Tinker's governess, without going a little more into the matter. This uneasiness made her at first somewhat constrained; but Sir Tancred and Lord Crosland contrived soon to put her at her ease, and presently she was taking her part in the talk without an effort.
When she went away with the children, Lord Crosland lighted a cigarette, and said thoughtfully, "Well, Tinker has made a find. She is a lady."
I should be inclined to say gentlewoman, said Sir Tancred. "Lady is a word a trifle in disrepute; there are so many of them, and so various, don't you know."
Gentlewoman be it, said Lord Crosland. "But he's a wonderful young beggar for getting hold of the right thing. What a beautiful creature she is!"
She is beautiful, said Sir Tancred grudgingly.
Woman-hater! Va! said Lord Crosland.
Dorothy found herself admitted to a frank intimacy in this little circle into which whim had led her. She spent most of her time with the children. She gave Elsie two hours' lessons a day, and, since she had a knack of making them interesting, Tinker often enjoyed the benefit of her teaching. After lessons she shared most of their amusements, and learned to be a pirate, a brigand, an English sailor, a Boer, and every kind of captive and conspirator. Since she occupied some of Elsie's time, Tinker had once more leisure for mischief; and Dorothy rarely tried to restrain his fondness for pulling the legs of his fellow-creatures, for she found that he had the happiest knack of choosing such fellow-creatures as would be benefited, morally, by the operation. But she was a check upon his more reckless moods, and kept him from one or two outrageous pranks.
For his part, he found the responsibility of looking after her and Elsie not a little sobering; and he was quite alive to the fact that at Monte Carlo, that place of call of the adventurers of the world, one's womankind need a protecting male presence. Quietly and unobtrusively Sir Tancred seconded him in this matter; if Dorothy had the fancy to take the air in the gardens after dinner, she found that he or Lord Crosland, or both of them, deserted the tables till she went back to the hotel, and strolled with her and the children. She was growing very friendly with the two men, and beginning to take a far deeper interest in Sir Tancred than she would have cared to admit even to herself. His face of Lucifer, Son of the Morning, his perfect thoughtfulness, his unfailing gentle politeness, his melancholy and his very coldness, attracted her; and always watching him, she had now and again a glimpse of the possibilities of energy and passion which underlay the mask of his languor. At times, too, her woman's intuition assured her that, for all his dislike, or rather distaste, of women, she attracted him.
Unfortunately, but naturally, Sir Tancred and Lord Crosland were not the only men who found her beautiful. Monsieur le Comte Sigismond de Puy-de-Dôme, hero of many duels and more scandals, and darling of the Nationalist Press, also saw her beauty. With him to see was to act, and he never passed her without a conquering twirl of his waxed moustache, and a staring leer which he fondly believed to be a glance teeming with passion. Since even he, conscious as he was of his extraordinary fascination, could hardly mistake her look of annoyance for the glow of responsive passion, he resolved on more masterly action. He kept a careful watch, and one afternoon followed her and Tinker and Elsie on one of their walks. They went briskly, and at the end of a mile he was maintaining a continuous, passionate monologue in tones charged with heartfelt emotion on the subject of his tight but patent-leather boots.
A mile and a half on the way to Mentone they turned aside down a road into the hills. He followed them for a while over the loose stones and along the ruts of the roadway with considerable pain, and was on the very point of abandoning the pursuit when he came on Dorothy and Elsie sitting in a shady dell by the roadside, from which the wooded slopes of the hills rose steeply. Careless of his boots and of the fact that they had suffused his face with an unbecoming purple, he strode gallantly up to them, and set about making Dorothy's acquaintance. He began by talking, with an airy graciousness, of the charm of the spot in which he had found her, and of how greatly that charm was enhanced by her presence. But soon, seeing that she took not the slightest notice of him, that her eyes, to all seeming, looked through him at the trees on the further side of the dell, he lost his gracious air, and began to halt and stumble in his speech. Then he lost his head and plunged into a detailed account of the passion with which Dorothy's beauty had inflamed his heart, wearing the while his finest air of a conqueror dictating terms.
Dorothy surveyed him with a contemptuous wonder, over which her sense of the ludicrous was slowly gaining the mastery; Elsie stared at him. At last he ended the impassioned description of his emotions with a yet more impassioned appeal to Dorothy to fly with him to a far-off shore forever shining with the golden light of love; and Dorothy laughed a gentle laugh of pure amusement.
Count Sigismond flushed purpler; his eyes stood well out of his head; he drew himself up with a superb air—a little spoiled by a wince as his left boot deftly reminded him that he was wearing it, and cried, "Ha! You laugh! You laugh at Sigismond de Puy-de-Dôme! Mon Dieu! You shall learn!" And with a sudden spring he grabbed at her.
She jerked aside, sprang up, and away from him. But he was between her and the exit from the dell; he crouched with the impressive deliberation of a villain in a melodrama for another spring, and Elsie screamed, "Tinker! Tinker!"
Count Sigismond heard a rustling in the bushes above, and looked up to see them parted by an angel child, in white ducks, bearing a bunch of lilies in his hand, who gazed at him with a serious, almost pained face, and leapt lightly down.
With a "Pah! Imbecile!" addressed to himself for delaying, the Count sprang towards Dorothy, was conscious of a swift white streak, and the head of the angel child, impelled by wiry muscles and a weight of seventy-six pounds, smote as a battering ram upon the first and second buttons of his waistcoat. He doubled up and sat down hard in one movement; then turned on his side, and gasped and gasped.
Come along! cried Tinker in a most imperative tone. "A row is a horrid nuisance when there are women in it!" And he caught his charges, either by an arm, and bustled them out of the dell and down the road.
Dorothy laughed as she ran; never before had she seen vaunting arrogance brought low in so sudden and signal a fashion. At last she stopped, dabbed away the tears of mirth, and said, "Oh, Tinker, I am so much obliged to you! It's all very well to laugh now; but it might have been horrid!"
It was the simplest thing in the world, said Tinker. Then, rubbing his head ruefully, he added, "I wish those foreigners would not wear gold buttons on their white waistcoats in the daytime. They have no more notion of how to dress than a cat—the men haven't."
They hurried along, looking back now and again to see if they were followed. They were not, for Count Sigismond was now sitting up in the shady dell, staring round it with fishy eyes, and wondering dully whether he owed his disaster entirely to an angel child, or whether Mont Pelée had affected the neighbourhood. He gasped still.
As they drew near the town, Tinker grew thoughtful. Suddenly he stopped, and said seriously, "Now, look here, both of you, we mustn't let my father know about this, or he'll certainly thrash that bounding Frenchman; and that wouldn't be good enough, don't you know."
It would be very good for him, said Dorothy with some vindictiveness.
Yes, but not for my father, said Tinker very earnestly, indeed. "For all that he looks like a swollen frog, Le Comte de Puy-de-Dôme is awfully dangerous with the pistol. He's hurt two men badly in duels already."
Has he? said Dorothy quickly, and the colour faded in her cheeks. "Then we must, indeed, say nothing about it."
Swear, said Tinker, raising his right hand.
We swear, said Dorothy and Elsie in one voice, raising their right hands. It was a formality which had to be gone through many times when they played at being conspirators; their words and action were mechanical.
That's all right, said Tinker with a sigh of relief.
Count Sigismond returned to his hotel in a very hot fury. His outraged pride clamoured for vengeance, and he sought for someone on whom to be revenged. He was surprised at the end of two days to hear nothing of his discomfiture; but his fury lost nothing by growing cool, and on the third night he picked a quarrel with Sir Tancred.
Next morning Sir Tancred asked Dorothy to take the children to Nice for a few days, since he had heard that there was some fever at one of the smaller hotels. He watched over their departure himself, and Tinker was aware of an indefinable something in his manner which puzzled him. It was, perhaps, that something which gave him a curious, unsettled feeling, as if they were going on a much longer journey. As they left the hotel, Lord Crosland came up from the Condamine carrying a square case under his arm; it did not escape Tinker's observant eye; but in the bustle of their removal he gave it but scant attention. In the evening Dorothy noticed that he was restless and absent-minded, and asked him what was the matter.
I don't know, he said; "I have a funny feeling as though something was going to happen, and I can't think of anything. It's just as if I'd missed something I ought to have noticed. It always makes me uncomfortable. Yet I can't think what it can be."
She made many suggestions, but to no purpose, and he went to bed dissatisfied. He awoke once or twice in the night—a very rare thing with him; possibly, so close was their kinship, his father's disturbed spirit in some obscure and mysterious fashion was striving to warn him, or prepare him for calamitous tidings. In the early morning he slept soundly, and awoke rather later than was his wont; and, even as he awoke, the square case which Lord Crosland had carried sprang into his mind, and he knew it to be a case of pistols. In a flash everything was clear to him; his father was going to fight Count Sigismond, and had sent him to Nice to be out of the way.
He sprang out of bed, and dashed for his watch; it was two minutes past seven. They would fight at eight; he had nearly an hour. In three minutes he was dressed, and racing down the stairs. He met Dorothy coming up.
What's the matter? she cried at the sight of his white face.
My father—he's fighting Le Comte de Puy-de-Dôme, and he's got us out of the way!
He did not see her turn pale, and clutch the banisters; he was racing out of the hotel. He ran to the coach-house, wheeled his bicycle into the courtyard, mounted, and rode down the street. He went at a moderate pace through the town, but once on the Corniche road, he drove the machine as hard as he could pedal.
He was well on his way before his mind cleared enough for him to think what he was doing; and then his heart sank; he could do nothing. He could not interrupt a duel; that was the last enormity. And if he did interrupt it, it would be but for a few minutes; it would take place all the same. As the sense of his helplessness filled him, two or three great tears forced themselves out of his eyes. He dashed them away with a most unangelic savageness; then, conscious only of a devouring desire to be near his father in his perilous hour, he drove on the machine as hard as he could.
The Corniche is a good road, but all up hill and down dale; and he knew how much more time he lost by jumping off and running his bicycle up a hill than he made by letting it rip down the descent. As he drew near Monaco a kind of hopelessness settled on him. He almost wished, since he could not stop it, that he might find the duel over. Now and again a dry sob burst from his overloaded bosom.
It was ten minutes to eight when he came up the slope from the Condamine. His legs were leaden, but they drove on the machine. At last he came to the path which leads to the half glade, half rocky amphitheatre, in which the gentry of the principality, and of the rest of the world who chance to be visiting it, settle their affairs of honour, slipped off his machine, and ran down it as fast as his stiff legs would carry him. A few yards from the end of it he turned aside into the bushes, came to the edge of the glade, saw his father and Count Sigismond facing one another some forty yards away; saw a white handkerchief raised in Lord Crosland's hand, and in spite of himself, his pent-up emotion burst from him in one wild eldritch yell.
It still rang on the quivering air when the handkerchief fluttered to the ground, and the pistols flashed together.
Now to those who enjoy an intimacy with Tinker, an eldritch yell is neither here nor there. Piercing as this one was, it barely reached Sir Tancred's consciousness; but it smote sharply on Count Sigismond's tense nerves, and deflected the barrel of his pistol just so much as sent the bullet zip past Sir Tancred's ear, as he received Sir Tancred's bullet in his elbow, and started to traverse the glade in a series of violent but ungainly leaps, uttering squeal on squeal.
Tinker turned and bolted, sobbing, gasping, and choking in the revulsion from his hopeless dread. He seized his bicycle, ran it along the road some fifty yards, turned in among the bushes, flung himself down, and sobbed and cried.
There was confusion on the scene of the duel. Count Sigismond's seconds had to chase him, catch him, and hold him while the doctor dressed his wound. Then they fell to a discussion as to whether the eldritch yell had been uttered by the Count or by someone in the wood round the glade; it had fallen upon very ragged nerves, and for the lives of them they could not be sure. Lord Crosland threw no light at all upon the matter, though he did his best to help their dispute grow acrimonious. Sir Tancred preserved the discreet silence of a principal in a duel; the Count Sigismond only moaned.
At last they turned their attention to him, and carried him to the top of the path. Sir Tancred and Lord Crosland started for the town to send up a cab for him.
When they were out of hearing, Lord Crosland said, "Most likely, that yell saved your life, old chap."
I should say that there wasn't a doubt about it; but, really, in the case of a sweep like Puy-de-Dôme, I can't say that I mind a little irregularity. Besides, my conscience is quite clear. Heaven knows I did my best to keep Tinker in the dark and at a distance.
It can't be done, said Lord Crosland with conviction.
Tinker heard their voices, and by a violent effort, which did him good, hushed his hysteric sobbing. After a while he heard the cab rattle up, and rattle away.
Twenty minutes later he mounted his machine, and, passing through the back streets of Monte Carlo, rode slowly back to Nice. On his way back he washed his face at a spring, and when he mounted his machine again, he said to himself firmly, "I'm not ashamed—not a bit."
As he wheeled his bicycle into the coach-house of the hotel, Dorothy ran into it, caught him by the arm, and cried, "Did they fight? Is your father hurt?"
He looked at her white, strained face, and said with a dogged air, "My father's all right. What do you mean about fighting? I—I've been for a ride—on my bicycle."
Then you did stop it! cried Dorothy; and before he could ward her off she had kissed him.
Look here, said Tinker firmly, but gently, "these things won't bear talking about. They won't really."
该作者其它作品
《Arsene Lupin》
《The Three Eyes19章节》
A few days later, early in the afternoon, Sir Tancred was leaning on the wall of the gardens of the Temple of Fortune, smoking a cigarette, and looking down on the Mediterranean in a very thoughtful mood. Tinker was by his side, also looking down on the Mediterranean, also silent, out of respect to his father's mood.
Suddenly Sir Tancred turned towards him, and said abruptly, "What did you say you paid your governess?"
Thirty pounds a year, said Tinker.
She dresses well, said Sir Tancred.
Tinker turned his head and eyed his father with a trifle of distrust. "She does dress well," he said gravely, "and I can't quite make it out. Sometimes I think that her people must have lost their money, and she bought her gowns before that happened. Sometimes I really think she's only being a governess for fun."
For fun? said Sir Tancred. "But I thought her references were all right. Yes; you told me she carried them about with her."
Well, she has the nicest kind of face, said Tinker; and his own was out of the common guileless.
Oh! her face was her reference, was it? said Sir Tancred quickly.
You can forge references, but you can't forge a face, said Tinker with the air of a philosopher.
Sir Tancred laughed gently. "My good Tinker," he said, "I look forward to the day when you enter the diplomatic service. The diplomacy of your country will be newer than ever. But don't be too sure that a woman can't forge her face."
There'd be a precious lot of forgery, if they could forge faces like Dorothy's, said Tinker with conviction.
You seem a perfect well of truth to-day, said Sir Tancred.
They were silent a while, gazing idly over the sea; then Tinker said, "I'm beginning to think that Dorothy is rather mysterious, don't you know. She gets very few letters, but lots of cablegrams, from America. She has lots of money, too, and she spends it. Sometimes I have to talk to her seriously about being extravagant."
You do? What does she say?
Oh, she laughs. That's what makes me think she's only a governess for fun. I never knew a girl so ready to laugh—though she did cry that morning. He spoke musingly, half to himself.
What morning was that? said Sir Tancred quickly.
It was a few mornings ago, said Tinker vaguely; and he added hastily, "I think I'll go after her and Elsie; they've gone down the Corniche towards Mentone."
Was it the morning I had an affair with M. le Comte de Puy-de-Dôme?
Ye-e-s, said Tinker with some reluctance, and he prepared for trouble. Hitherto his father had said nothing of that timely but eldritch yell. Now, by his careless admission about the tears of Dorothy, he had opened the matter, and let himself in for a rating.
But Sir Tancred was silent, musing, and Tinker returned to his idle consideration of the Mediterranean.
Presently he said, "She would make you a nice little wife, sir."
Sir Tancred started. "There are times," he said, "when I feel you would take my breath away, if I hadn't very good lungs."
I thought that that was what you were thinking about, said the ingenuous Tinker.
If you add thought-reading to your other accomplishments, it will be too much, said Sir Tancred with conviction.
Of a sudden there came bustling round the right-hand horn of the bay a most disreputable, bedraggled-looking vessel. By her lines a yacht, her decks would have been a disgrace to the oldest and most battered tin-pot of an ocean tramp. Her masts had gone, there were gaps in her bulwarks, and the smoke of her furnaces, pouring through a hole in her deck over which her funnel had once reared itself, had taken advantage of this rare and golden opportunity to blacken her after-part to a very fair semblance of imitation ebony, and to transform her crew to an even fairer imitation of negroes dressed in black.
She is in a mess! said Tinker.
Of the Atlantic's making, to judge by its completeness, said Sir Tancred. "Whose yacht is it?"
I don't know, said Tinker, staring at it with all his eyes.
You ought to, said Sir Tancred with some severity. "You've been on it. It's Meyer's."
So it is, said Tinker, mortified. "I am stupid not to have recognised it!"
Your new clairvoyant faculty must be weakening your power of observation. I shouldn't give way to it, if I were you.
Tinker wriggled.
A hundred yards from the jetty the yacht's engines were reversed; and the way was scarcely off her, when her only remaining boat fell smartly on the water, and was rowed quickly to the steps.
They seem in a hurry, said Sir Tancred.
For a while they busied themselves in conjectures as to what errand had brought the yacht to Monaco; Sir Tancred lighted another cigarette, and they watched the crew of the yacht set to work at once to wash the decks.
Some twenty minutes later a little group hurried into the gardens, the manager of the Hôtel des Princes, a tall, bearded, grimy man, and a stout, clean-shaven, grimy man. They came straight to Sir Tancred and Tinker, and the bearded man said quickly, "My name is Rainer, Septimus Rainer. I've just learnt that my daughter Dorothy is governessing your little girl. Where is she?"
Sir Tancred bowed, and said languidly, "Miss Rainer is the governess of my son's adopted sister. He is her employer, not I. Here he is."
Tinker stepped forward, and bowed.
Septimus Rainer stared at him with a bewildered air, and said, "Well, if this don't beat the Dutch!" Then he added feverishly, "Where is she? Where's my little girl? Where's Dorothy?"
She went with Elsie—that's her pupil—down the Corniche towards Mentone after déjeuner, said Tinker.
Take me to her! Take me to her at once, will you? She's not safe! said Rainer quickly.
Not safe! Come along! said Sir Tancred; and his languor fell from him like a mask, leaving him active and alert indeed.
It's like this, said Rainer as they hurried through the gardens. "A week ago I got a cable from Paris saying that a kidnapping gang were after Dorothy. I'm a millionaire, and the scum are after ransom. I cabled to McNeill, my Paris agent, to come right here with half a dozen of the best detectives in France, scooped up Mr. Buist of the New York police,"—he nodded towards the short, clean-shaven, grimy man—"borrowed a yacht, and came along myself. Being in a hurry, we had trouble with the Atlantic of course; but I've done it seven hours quicker than steamer and train. Have McNeill and the detectives come?"
No, they haven't, said Tinker.
Sure? said Rainer.
Quite, said Tinker. "I've seen no one watching over Dorothy; and she has gone about outside the town, in the woods, and down by the sea, just as usual. She knew of no danger, I'm sure."
Perhaps McNeill didn't want to frighten her, and just set his men to watch over her from a distance, said Rainer.
Perhaps McNeill is in it, said Sir Tancred drily.
I'm glad I came right here, said Rainer.
They came out of the gardens, and as they passed the Hôtel des Princes, Tinker said, "Go on down the Corniche! I'll catch you up!" and bolted into it.
He ran upstairs into his father's room, and took from a drawer the pocketbook which held their passports; ran into his own room, and thrust into his hip-pocket the revolver he could use so well, into other pockets five hundred francs in notes and gold. Then, sure that he had provided against all possible emergencies, he ran smiling down the stairs.
As he came out of the front-door, his eyes fell on a lonely, deserted motor-car. In a breath he had pitied its loneliness, seen its use, and jumped into it. He set it going, and in three minutes caught up his father, Rainer, and the detective. Sir Tancred jumped into the seat beside him, Rainer and the detective into the back seat.
Whose car is this? How did you get it? said Sir Tancred.
I commandeered it, said Tinker firmly. "And I was lucky too; it's a good car."
I suppose there'll be a row about it. But we've got to use it, said Sir Tancred.
Oh, no! there won't, said Tinker cheerfully. "When we come back, everyone but me can get out. I'll take it back, and explain things."
For a mile Tinker sent the car along at full speed. Then he slowed down, and pulling up at every opening into the hills or down to the shore, sent a long coo-ee ringing down it. No answer came back. At the end of two miles his face was growing graver and graver, and its gravity was reflected in the faces of the three men. At the end of two miles and a half he stopped the car, and said, "They can't have gone further than this."
Just too late, muttered Septimus Rainer; and they looked at one another with questioning eyes.
Well, there's no time to be lost, said Sir Tancred. "Mr. Buist had better hurry back to Monte Carlo, to the Hôtel des Princes, in case we've missed them. We will go on hard, and he can wire to us, if they come back to the hotel, at Ventimiglia."
That's all very well, said the detective with a sudden air of stubbornness. "But I don't like the look of the business. It's a curious thing that Miss Rainer, the daughter of a millionaire, should be a governess in your family. I don't understand it. There is a chance, and I'm bound to consider it, of your being mixed up with this kidnapping gang. What's to prevent you kidnapping Mr. Rainer?"
Sir Tancred's eyes flashed, and he looked as though he could not believe his ears. Tinker laughed a gentle, joyful laugh.
I mean no offence, sir, said the detective with some haste, at the sight of Sir Tancred's face. "But I'm bound to look at it all ways."
Just as you like, said Sir Tancred quietly. "Let Mr. Rainer go back, or both of you go back. Only be quick!"
The millionaire had watched the faces of father and son with very keen eyes while the detective had been speaking: "Off you go, Buist!" he broke in. "I know where I am! Go, man! Go!"
The detective jumped out of the car, and Sir Tancred said, "Go to M. Lautrec at the Police Bureau at Monte Carlo. He's the best man to set things moving. Tell him to wire as far as Genoa: there's nothing like being on the safe side." And Tinker started the car.
Two miles further on they came upon a peasant woman tramping slowly along, with a heavy basket on her head. Tinker stopped the car, and Sir Tancred asked her if she had seen a lady and a little girl walking on the Corniche between that spot and Monte Carlo. She said she had not seen a lady and a little girl walking, but a mile out of Monte Carlo she had seen a lady and a little girl in a carriage with two gentlemen; and the horses were galloping: oh, but they did gallop; they had nearly run over her. The young lady had cried out to her as they passed. She had not caught what she said; she had thought it a joke.
It looks very like them: we had better follow this carriage. What do you think, Mr. Rainer? said Sir Tancred. "Of course they may be back at the hotel by now, and we may be on a wild-goose chase."
I guess we can afford to be laughed at; but we can't afford to lose a chance, said the millionaire.
They passed this woman a mile out of Monte Carlo, and we're four miles and a half out, said Tinker. "She doesn't walk above three miles an hour with that basket: they're an hour and twenty minutes ahead."
You're smart, sonny, said the millionaire.
Right away! said Sir Tancred: and he tossed a five-franc piece to the woman.
Tinker set the car going, and began to try his hardest to get her best speed out of her.
The millionaire leaned forward, and said to Sir Tancred, "The scum are hardly up-to-date to use a carriage instead of a motor-car."
What I don't see is how they are going to get them across the frontier. It looks—it looks as if the Italian police were in it, said Sir Tancred, frowning.
Do you mean to tell me that the Italian police would connive at kidnapping? said the millionaire.
No: but some rascal of a detective, who could pull a good many strings, might be in it. At any rate if they get them across the frontier undrugged, the authorities are squared or humbugged. What I'm afraid of is that they're making for that rabbit-warren, Genoa. If they get them there, we may be a fortnight finding them.
I guess I'll squeal before that, said the millionaire; "yes, if I have to put up a million dollars."
The car had reached a speed at which they could only talk in a shout, and it seemed no more than a few minutes before Tinker slowed down for Mentone, and stopped at a gendarme. Before saying a word Sir Tancred showed him a twenty-franc piece; and the gendarme spoke, he was even voluble. Yes, he had seen a carriage, rather more than an hour before. It had galloped through the town. It carried fever-patients for the hospital at Genoa, ill of the bubonic plague. The police and the custom-house officials had been warned by wire from Monte Carlo and Genoa not to delay it. There were relays of horses every twenty miles to Genoa: the wires had said so.
That was how they crossed the frontier, was it? What fools these officials are! said Sir Tancred, and he gave the gendarme his Napoleon: and bade him tell his superior officer that the police had been humbugged.
If they're really bound for Genoa, we can catch them and to spare—bar accidents, said Tinker cheerfully. "Besides, M. Lautrec will have wired to look out for them." And he set the car going.
Oh, they're bound for Genoa, sure enough, said Sir Tancred. "But they won't enter it in that carriage, or much before daybreak. Still the rascals don't know that you've come, Mr. Rainer, and that we're already on their track. That ought to spoil their game."
The car ran through Mentone, and into Ventimiglia, but as it drew near the custom-house, Sir Tancred cried, "By Jove, we're going to be delayed! The guard's turned out!" And sure enough, a dozen soldiers barred the road.
Tinker stopped the car: and a sergeant bade Sir Tancred and Mr. Rainer come with him to the officer in command. Tinker gave his father the pocketbook which contained their passports; the two of them got out of the car, and followed the sergeant into the custom-house.
Tinker jumped down, and sure that he had plenty of time, looked at the machinery and filled up the petrol tank from a gallon tin in the back of the car. Then he went back to his seat.
He could hear a murmur of voices from the custom-house, and it grew louder and louder; he caught disjointed scraps of angry talk. Of a sudden his father's voice rose loud in apparent fury, and he cried in Italian, "Spies! We're nothing of the kind!" and then in English, "Bolt!"
In a flash the car was moving, and half a dozen soldiers sprang forward, crying, "Stop! Stop!"
It's running away! screamed Tinker in Italian, and switched it on to full speed.
It jerked forward; and the soldiers ran heavily after it.
Hold it back! Hold it back! screamed Tinker, and with the unquestioning obedience of the perfectly disciplined man, a simple young soldier caught hold of the back of the car, and threw all his heart and strength into the effort to stop it, only to find himself running fast. At sixty yards he was running faster and shouting loudly. At eighty yards, he stopped shouting, let go, and fell down. Tinker looked back, and saw him sitting up in the dust and shaking his fist, while forty yards beyond him his fellow-soldiers danced gesticulating in the middle of the road.
Tinker let the car rip on, the while he considered what he should do. He was excited, determined, he accepted readily enough the responsibility which had fallen upon him, but he was hardly happy. He could see no hope of rescuing Dorothy and Elsie by himself, even if he caught the carriage; and since he reckoned that it would take his father two or three hours to turn the Riviera upside down, and extricate himself and Mr. Rainer from the extremely neat and effective trap into which they had fallen, he could look for no help from them till far into the night. For a while he suffered from the sense that he had bitten off, or rather had had thrust into his mouth, more than he could chew. Then of a sudden he saw that the really important thing, the dogging the kidnappers, was in his power, and he regained his cheerfulness.
He drove on the car at full speed for ten miles, and inquired of a peasant walking beside a cart loaded with bags of grain, if he had seen the carriage. The peasant had seen it; he was vague as to how long ago, and how far away, but Tinker was sure that he had seen it. Accordingly, he drove on the car at full speed again. In this way, going at full speed, and now and again slowing down to inquire, he got over a good many miles. He was frightened when he went through a town lest the police should try to stop him, but it seemed that they had received no such instructions from Ventimiglia. All the while he was drawing nearer the carriage, for all that, somewhere or other, it had plainly changed horses.
At last he made up his mind that he would overtake it in the next seven miles; and he bucketed the car along for all she was worth. At the end of the seven miles he had not overtaken it, nor was there any appearance of it on the road before him, a level stretch of two miles. However, he ran on another five miles, and there was no sign of it, nor had anyone he passed or met, seen it. Plainly he had overshot it.
He turned the car, and came back, stopping to examine branch roads for its wheel-tracks, losing the ground he had made up. Some seven miles back, he came to a road leading to a great gap in the hills. A little girl was feeding a few lean sheep at the corner of it. No: she had seen no carriage; she had only been here a little while: the road ran up to Camporossa. Tinker considered it, and it invited his search. It went high into the hills, and he saw little towns here and there on their sides. He sent the car slowly down it. For seventy yards the roadway was hard, or stony; then came a patch of dust, smooth and unmarked by a wheel-track. Any vehicle going along the road must have passed over it, and a wave of disappointment submerged Tinker's spirit; the road had seemed so very much the right one. He stopped the car, and stared blankly at the patch of dust. Suddenly his quick eye caught a curious marking on its surface. He jumped down, and bent over it: sure enough, the patch had been brushed and smoothed with a bough.
He hurried the car back to the corner of the road, and by entreaties, persuasion, cajoling, a five-franc piece, and even—great concession!—a kiss, he wrung from the little shepherdess a promise that she would wait till dark if need were, stop every motor-car that came from the direction of the frontier, and say, "The kidnappers have gone up this road." He was assured that his father would borrow or hire a motorcar, and follow in it.
Then he turned the car for Camporossa. Three hundred yards up the road he came to another patch of dust, and saw the wheel-tracks of the carriage deep and plain. He sent along the car as hard as he dared, for, as the road grew steeper along the hillside, it grew stonier and stonier, thanks to its serving, like most Italian hill roads, as a watercourse to carry off the rain from the hills. A very slow and painful jolting brought him among the olive groves of Camporossa and into that little town.
He stopped before the little Inn, and was served with milk and bread and fruit. As he ate and drank, he was all affability and information to the group of the curious who gathered round the car. He was an English boy; his family had gone on in front in a carriage, and he was following them in the car. He learned at once that the carriage had gone on to Dolceacqua, and was less than an hour ahead.
He paid for his food and milk, and without delay sent the car up the steep hillside. He had to nurse and coax it up the steepest parts. After another long jolting he reached Dolceacqua, vexed all the time by the knowledge that the carriage was going as fast as he over such roads. The magnificent view of the Mediterranean from the rose-gardens of Dolceacqua afforded him no pleasure at all; it made only too clear to him the risk he would run, if he recovered Dorothy and Elsie and had to descend that steep at any pace. At Dolceacqua he learned that the carriage was little more than half an hour ahead, on the road to Islabona. He was pleased to hear that, for all the badness of the road, he had gained upon it: plainly the horses were tiring.
Another steep climb brought him up to Islabona, to learn that the carriage had turned to the right along the road to Apricale. To his surprise and satisfaction he found this road smooth, and once more, after long crawling, sent the car along at full speed. It was time to make haste, for the sun was setting. A mile from Apricale he saw a cloud of dust ahead of him, and he knew that he had the kidnappers in sight. He slowed down, for he did not wish to be seen by them. Then when the dust-cloud vanished into the straggling town, he hurried on again, for if they pushed on through the darkness, he would have to follow by the sound of their wheels.
He came through Apricale at a moderate speed. Then a mile beyond it, as he came to the top of a little hill, he saw the carriage moving slowly down an avenue, to a house on the left, some hundred yards from the road. He stopped the car with a jerk, backed it a little way down the hill, and from the brow watched the carriage drive up to the house. Then the sun set, and the swift twilight fell.
He set about filling up the petrol tank, and making sure that the lamp was ready to light. Then he backed the car into a clump of trees, and set out across the fields for the house. It was the dark hour after sunset, and he found most of the bushes thorny. Presently he came into a deserted garden, overgrown with rank weeds and unclipped shrubs. He hoped devoutly that the scorpions and tarantulas would await the passing of the sunset chill in their lairs. To all seeming they did, for he pushed through the garden without mishap, and came to the house. It was a four-square, two-storied building, with something of the air of a fortress, a useful abode in those once brigand-ridden hills, some old-time gentleman's country-seat; a mat of creepers covered it to its tiled roof. The side near him was dark; and from the back came the voices of three stablemen about their business. He stole round to the front; and that too was dark. But on the further side two rooms were lighted, one on the ground floor, one above.
A chatter of excited voices came from the lower windows; and Tinker came to within ten yards of it, and looked in through the heavy bars. Three men were dining at the table: a freckled redheaded man with the high cheekbones of the Scot, a dissipated young Italian of a most romantic air, and a small, round, vivacious man, ineffably French.
I'm going to marry the girl, say what you will! the Italian cried. "Where would your scheme have been without my aid? Where would you have found a house like this, out of the world, secure from search, in a country where everyone is as silent as the grave in my interests?"
Pardon, my dear Monteleone, said the Frenchman; "I am going to marry the lady. Without me, there would have been no scheme for you to help. I made it. I rank first. I marry the young lady."
What's all this talk about marrying the girl? roared the Scotchman, in French. "We agreed on a ransom of a million and a half francs, five hundred thousand francs each!"
The lady's beauty has changed all that, said the Frenchman. "I am going to marry her."
No, no: it's me; it's me, said the Italian.
Have done with this foolish talk! roared the Scotchman, banging the table. "If either of you marries her, the poor young thing will be a widow in a fortnight. I know Septimus Rainer; he'll shoot such a son-in-law at sight!"
Shoot me! Shoot me! This American mushroom shoot a Monteleone for marrying his daughter! cried the Italian. "Why, the Monteleones were Crusaders! He'll be proud of the alliance!"
Very proud—very proud he'll be will Septimus Rainer—when he's shot ye, jeered the Scotchman.
A movement overhead drew Tinker's attention; he looked up, to see Dorothy leaning out of the window above. He uttered the short click which served him as a signal when he played the part of chief conspirator. She looked straight down at him, but did not move or answer, and he knew that there was someone, an enemy, in the room with her. The kidnappers still disputed vehemently; and he stole up to the wall, and began to climb the vine which covered the side of the house. He disturbed a number of roosting small birds; but Dorothy's suitors were putting forward their pretensions to her hand with a clamour which drowned the flutter of wings. He climbed up and up, and Dorothy never stirred; and at last he looked under her arm into the room. Elsie, with her elbows on the table, was staring miserably at the grim, forbidding face of an elderly woman who sat on a chair backed up against the door.
Tinker looked at the woman and could scarcely believe his eyes, then he laughed gently, slipped over the window-sill, and said cheerfully, "Hullo, Selina, how are you?"
The grim woman started up with a little cry, stared at him, ran across the room, and began to hug him furiously, crying, "Oh, Master Tinker! Master Tinker! What a turn you did give me!"
drop it, Selina! drop it! said Tinker, struggling out of her embrace. "You know how I hate being slobbered over!"
Then he dodged Dorothy and Elsie, who advanced upon him with one accord and one purpose of kissing him, and cried, "No, no! This is no time for foolery!"
But I don't understand, said Dorothy.
Oh! Selina's my old nurse. What are you doing here, Selina? I never expected you to turn kidnapper at your age!
Nothing of the kind, Master Tinker! I'm paid to help save these poor lambs from them Popish Jesuits, and I'm going to do it!
Let's hear about this, said Tinker, sitting down on the table.
It's my poor husband's cousin, Mr. Alexander McNeill. He engaged me to come here to act as maid to a young lady he was helping get away from those Jesuits who were trying to force her into a convent to get her money, said Selina.
You've been humbugged, then. What you are doing is helping to kidnap my adopted sister Elsie, and Miss Dorothy Rainer, the daughter of an American millionaire, said Tinker joyfully.
Dorothy started and flushed. "How did you learn that?" she said quickly.
Your father's come from America, and he and my father are looking for you, though where they are there's no saying. I left them at Ventimiglia arrested as spies, said Tinker.
Arrested as spies? cried Dorothy.
But Selina, whose face had undergone a slow but violent change, broke in, "So Alexander's humbugged me, has he? He's brought me all the way from Paris here by a lie about Jesuits having tried to bury this young lady in one of their nasty convents, to do his dirty kidnapping work, has he? I'll kidnap him! I'll teach him to play these tricks on me!"
Do! said Tinker with warm approval. "You let him have it! Think that you're pitching into me like you used to! Come along, all of you! Selina's simply tremendous when her back's up!"
Selina opened the door, and went down the stairs with all the outraged majesty of a Boadicea. The three of them followed her quietly, and at the bottom Tinker bade Dorothy and Elsie unbar the door of the house and himself kept close behind Selina. She opened the door of the room; and at the sight of her the sustained shriek in which the Italian and the Frenchman were conversing died suddenly down, and the three kidnappers stared at her.
You nasty, body-snatching scum! said Selina, glowering at them.
Eh! What? You're daft, woman! What's the matter? said McNeill.
Don't you woman me, Alexander McNeill! said Selina. "Daft, am I? Daft to listen to your lies about Jesuits and the young lady! Daft to believe you when you told me not to listen to her, for the Jesuits had got round her, and she didn't know what was good for her! But I've found you out! I'm going to take the young lady straight back to her father, and send the police here for you."
Woman, you're mad! said McNeill, rising with a scared face.
Don't you woman me, you low Scotchman! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, mixing yourself up with these foreign rascals! You that's had a Christian up-bringing!
You do what you're paid to do! roared McNeill.
Il faut agir! said the Frenchman, with the true Napoleonic grasp of the situation, and he bounced in a lithe, over-confident manner at Selina.
In a flash she had her left hand well gripped in his abundant hair, and was clawing his face with her right. He screamed and writhed; and the struggle gave Tinker his chance. He slipped the key out of the inside of the door, thrust it into the outside; as the Frenchman tore himself away yelling, he cried, "Outside, Selina!" strengthened the command by a strong drag on her arm; got her outside; slammed to the door, and locked it almost before the kidnappers had realised that he was there. He wrenched the key out of the lock just as Dorothy had got the front-door open; ran down the hall; caught Elsie's hand, and crying, "Come along! Come along!" ran down the avenue, followed by Dorothy and Selina as fast as they could pelt.
Three minutes brought them to the car; and he bundled his breathless charges into it, drove it out of the clump of trees, and sent it hard down the road. Just before Apricale he bade them crouch down in the car that they might not be seen, and rushed through the ill-lighted street at full speed. A mile beyond the town he lighted the lamp and drove her at full speed again, along the smooth road to Islabona.
Beyond Islabona he was forced to go very slowly down the jolting descent; if he had tried to go at any pace, the car on those loose stones might at any moment have taken its own steering in hand and smashed itself against the rocky banks. Dorothy and Elsie took advantage of the slowness to pour into his ears the tale of how the kidnappers had seized them on the Corniche a mile outside the town, thrust them into the carriage, and kept them quiet by threats. Now and again he hushed them, to listen for pursuing horses. He had not much fear of pursuit. The kidnappers would be some time breaking out of the room in which he had locked them; and when they were out they would scour the neighbourhood on foot. He had kept well out of sight behind Selina; and they would hear nothing of the car before they began to pursue. When they did pursue, it would be on the sure-footed hill horses; they would come three yards to the car's one.
At last they reached Dolceacqua, and pushed steadily and carefully downwards. Half-way between that town and Camporossa, they came round a bend in the road, to see half a mile below them the flaring lamp of a motor-car.
Here's my father, or the police! said Tinker with a sigh of relief.
In five minutes Dorothy was kissing her father; and Tinker was presenting the new-found Selina to Sir Tancred with a joyful account of her delinquencies.
It had taken Sir Tancred little more than two and a half hours to get free of the Italian authorities; and as Tinker had expected he had hired a motor-car, and came straight and hard for Genoa, to be turned aside on to the right track by Tinker's shepherdess.
When they had exchanged stories, Mr. Rainer was for going on and taking vengeance on the kidnappers. But Sir Tancred dissuaded him, pointing out that there was no need to have every gossip in Europe talking about Dorothy. If the police, who were in a bustle from Mentone to Genoa, caught them, it must be endured. But Dorothy had escaped unharmed, and the less fuss made about the matter the better.
Mr. Rainer listened to reason; Dorothy got into the car with Sir Tancred and her father; and they continued the descent. Once on the highroad they set out for Monte Carlo as hard as they dared go at night. It was past midnight when they reached the hotel, where Buist was awaiting them in great anxiety. The sight of them set his mind at rest; but to this day he is inclined to believe that Sir Tancred had a hand in the kidnapping of Dorothy, and that Selina was an accomplice. To his intimates he speaks of him with great respect as "a mastermind of crime."
They were all very hungry and they supped at great length, in very good spirits. As they were going upstairs to bed, Tinker succeeded in keeping Dorothy back.
It's all very well your being the daughter of a millionaire, he said with some severity. "But an employer has his rights. I can't lose a governess who suits Elsie so well, straight off. I shall expect a month's notice."
But I've no intention of resigning that excellent post, said Dorothy, smiling.
Tinker looked at her gravely, thinking, and then he said gloomily, "Your father will never let you be a governess. I suppose you expect me to back you up against him."
That's just what I do expect, said Dorothy.
On awaking next morning Dorothy's first thought was how would her father's coming affect her relations with Sir Tancred; and she at once changed it to how would it affect her relations with the whole of the little circle into which a fortunate whim had led her. She was an honest soul, and now she tried to be as honest with herself as a woman can bring herself to be. She did not hide from herself that of late she and Sir Tancred had been more and more drawn together; she even went to the length of admitting that her feeling for him was something stronger than friendship. Indeed, she was full of pity for him. She had learned from Tinker something of the story of his earlier life, and like a good woman she wished she might give him the happiness he had missed. She did not know how strongly she longed to give him that happiness, much less was she able to distinguish where pity merged into love. Now she was in a great dread of her father's millions. She knew well enough that with many, indeed, with most men of Sir Tancred's class they would have been primroses, very large primroses, on the path of love; she feared that if he was the man she thought him, and she would not have him any other, they would prove barriers on that path, hard indeed to surmount. She dressed in no very good spirits, and came downstairs to find her father awaiting her in the hall, ready to stroll out and hear how the world had gone with her.
Sir Tancred also awoke with the sense of something unpleasant having happened. But at first he could not for the life of him remember what it was. Then he began to consider the change which would be brought about by the irruption of the millionaire. He resented it. He found the prospect of Tinker's losing Dorothy's services exceedingly disagreeable. For a while he ascribed that resentment to the fact that she would cease to be the excellent influence with Tinker she certainly was; and then he grew resentful on his own account. It was hard, indeed, that he should suddenly be deprived of the presence of so charming a creature at his table, of so delightful a companion of his evening stroll in the gardens of the Casino. If it hadn't been for those confounded millions—there he checked himself sternly; the millions were there, and there was no more to be said, or thought. But his temper was none the better for the constraint.
After his late hours the night before, Tinker did not get up as early as usual, and he and Elsie decided to forego their bathe in the sea, but went straight to breakfast in the kitchen of the hotel. He found the staff greatly concerned about the trouble which was likely to befall him for borrowing the motor-car. It seemed that on finding it gone, its owner, a M. Cognier, had displayed a wrath of the most terrible. Of course an Argus-eyed busy-body had seen Tinker depart in it; and M. Cognier, an Anglophobe, had declared his intention of punishing this insolence of Perfidious Albion by handing him over to the police. Tinker heard all their prophecies of evil with his wonted tranquillity; but he had no little difficulty in setting their minds at rest.
M. Cognier had been impressive.
The two children had finished their breakfast, and were about to set out in search of adventure, when Selina found them and began to set forth a petition. She wished to be allowed to enter Tinker's service again. She was, she said, alone in the world once more, for her husband, having spent all her savings, had with determined Scotch thriftiness incontinently died, and left her to shift for herself. She had been making a mean living as an ironer in a Parisian laundry, when Alexander McNeill had sent for her to Apricale to help him deliver a young lady from the Jesuits; and she saw in her curious meeting with Tinker, at the country seat of the young Monteleone, the finger of Providence pointing the way back to her old situation. Would he lay the matter before his father, and support her petition?
Tinker was somewhat taken aback, and said, "But I'm too old for a nurse."
Oh, there are lots of things I could do, Master Tinker. There are really, said Selina. "You want a housekeeper when you're at the Refuge, a housekeeper who could get up your linen and Sir Tancred's as they can't do it at Farndon-Pryze. You want someone to look after you, when you've got a cold. You never did take any care of yourself." She was wringing her hands in her earnestness.
You'd be a sort of valet-housekeeper then, said Tinker, pondering the matter.
Yes, and I should want very little wages. All I want is to be in your service again. I never ought to have left it. I never had no real peace all the time I was married, what with wondering how you were being looked after, and whether you was ill or not. I always took in The Morning Post, though Angus did grumble at the expense, all the time I was in Paris, on purpose to see where you was; and every day I looked at the Births, Deaths, and Marriages first, to see if anything had happened to you.
She stopped; and Tinker was silent a while, thinking; then he said, "Do you think you could act as maid to Elsie?"
Why, of course I could, Master Tinker!
She wants someone to brush her hair most, said Tinker thoughtfully.
I don't want a maid. And I don't want anyone to brush my hair but you, said Elsie firmly. "No one could do it so well."
Oh, you'll soon get used to Selina's doing it, said Tinker cheerfully. "And you'll find it so much more—so much more important having a maid of your own. You'll feel so grown-up, don't you know? I tell you what, we'll go upstairs, and Selina can have a try at it, while I talk to my father."
Elsie shook her head doubtfully; but she came. Tinker left them at the door of Elsie's room, and went to his father. He found him dressing, and after bidding him good-morning, came at once to the matter in hand. "Selina wants to come back to us," he said. "She thinks she could be useful as valet-housekeeper and maid to Elsie. She's awfully keen on it."
If she wants to come back, she most certainly can, said Sir Tancred. "I owe Selina a debt I can never pay—and so do you, for that matter. I don't pretend to know what the functions of a valet-housekeeper are, but doubtless Selina knows her own capabilities best. Besides, as you are losing your governess, you will want some woman about Elsie."
But I don't intend to lose my governess! cried Tinker.
Sir Tancred looked at him with unaffected interest. "Am I to understand that you propose to retain the daughter of a millionaire as your adopted sister's governess?" he said.
Yes, said Tinker firmly. "Dorothy's a very good governess: she suits Elsie and she suits me."
That sounds like a reason, said Sir Tancred. "But I shall be interested to see if Mr. Rainer listens to it."
I think, said Tinker thoughtfully, "we shan't have much trouble with Mr. Rainer."
Of course, if you've made up your mind—but millionaires are kittle cattle.
Tinker went to Selina and Elsie, looked carefully into the matter of hair-brushing; gave Selina a few hints on the process, and then told her that her request was granted. He fled from the room to escape her joyful gratitude; and went down into the hall to await the conclusion of the process, and Elsie's coming.
Of a sudden there descended on him an exceedingly animated French gentleman of forty, who cried, "Tell me then a little, good-for-nothing! Why did you steal my motor-car yesterday?"
Tinker was suavity itself; he protested that he was desolated, grieved beyond measure that the necessity of borrowing the motor-car had been forced on him; but he had borrowed it in the service of a lady; and he told briefly the story of the kidnapping. The aggrieved Frenchman listened to it with a face in which amazement battled with incredulity; but fortunately, towards the end of it, Dorothy and her father came into the hotel from walking in the garden of the Casino; and Tinker introduced the Frenchman to them. At the sight of Dorothy's beauty, he forgot his righteous wrath; forgot that it was an international matter, another instance of the cunning insolence of Perfidious Albion; protested his delight that his car should have been of use to her; would not listen to Septimus Rainer's proposal to fit it out with fresh tires, declaring that the tires on it, worn in her service, had become one of his most cherished possessions; and in the end turned upon Tinker with outstretched arms, and cried, "Embrace me! I have called you a good-for-nothing! But you are a hero!"
With infinite quickness Tinker seized the nearest hand, wrung it warmly, and ducked out of the way of the embrace. Then he explained that unless the police caught the kidnappers, they desired to let the matter drop, for the gossip would be unpleasant to Dorothy. The Frenchman understood; and assured them that as far as he was concerned, it should be buried in the most secret depths of his bosom.
With that he took his leave of them; and on his heels came two Italian detectives to inquire into the kidnapping. Sir Tancred was summoned to the conference; and for all that their questioners assumed a good deal of the air of inquisitors with all the horrors of the torture-chamber behind them, he and Tinker saw to it that they went away very little wiser than they came.
At déjeuner Septimus Rainer told them that now he was in Europe he proposed to stay in Europe, and enjoy a little of his daughter's society. He could carry on all of his business he wanted to by cablegram and letter. One thing, however, he must have, and that was clothes, for in his haste he had come away with a gripsack and nothing more. Sir Tancred suggested that Tinker, who knew his Nice, should take him over there, and put him in the hands of the right tailor, hatter, hosier, and bootmaker; and Septimus Rainer accepted the offer gratefully.
Accordingly the two of them caught a train early in the afternoon, and went to Nice. Septimus Rainer had supposed the getting of clothes to be a simple and tiresome affair of a few minutes; you went to a tailor and said, "Make me suits of clothes," or to a bootmaker and said, "Make me pairs of boots." He was vastly mistaken. He found himself embarked upon a serious business.
He awoke to the seriousness of it in the train, when he found Tinker, who had taken his commission to heart, regarding him with a cold, calculating air, very disquieting. He endured it as long as he could, then he said cautiously, "You aren't measuring me for my coffin; are you, sonny?"
Oh, no! said Tinker with a reassuring smile of a seraphic sweetness. "I was only thinking how you ought to be dressed."
Oh, anything will do for me, said Septimus Rainer carelessly.
I'm afraid not; you see I'm responsible, said Tinker seriously. "And I was thinking that, getting your clothes here in Nice, I shall have to keep a very sharp eye on them, or they'll go dressing you like a French American—you know, an American who is dressed by a Paris tailor. And that wouldn't do at all."
No: of course not, said Septimus Rainer quickly.
But it was not till they came to the tailor's that he realised the full seriousness of the business before them. At first he supposed that he was to have his say in the matter; but at the end of ten minutes, with a half-humorous abandonment, he put himself entirely in the hands of the conscientious Tinker, and indeed had he not done so, there is no saying that he might not have gone about the world parading a velvet collar on a grey frock coat. It was Tinker who decided, after weighty consideration, upon the colour and texture of the stuff of each suit, chose the very buttons for it, and forced upon the reluctant Niçois his ideas of the way each separate garment should be cut. Septimus Rainer was frankly bewildered at the end of half an hour; he was used, in the way of business, to carrying a multiplicity of details in his head, but these details it could not carry. When he found that Tinker had them at his finger ends, he was filled with admiration and respect.
From the tailor's they went to the hatter's; and there Septimus Rainer found himself trying on hats by the score. But, strangely enough, he did not grow weary: Tinker's absorbed interest in his task was catching to the point that at the hosier's the millionaire found himself discussing the shade of his socks with real enthusiasm.
When they came out of the last shop Tinker said, with the deep breath of one relieved of a heavy responsibility, "There—I think you'll look all right—as far as a French tailor can do it."
I ought to, after all the trouble you've taken, sonny, said Septimus Rainer, smiling.
You have to take trouble about dressing a man. A woman is easy enough. I got Elsie her clothes in about an hour. But a man is much more difficult. And clothes are so important, said Tinker gravely.
I suppose they are—over here, said Septimus Rainer.
I'm glad you don't take them really seriously, said Tinker, approving his tone, "because you'll soon get into the way of wearing them when you've got them. It's very funny, but well-dressed Americans—men, I mean—don't often wear their clothes properly; they look as if they felt so awfully well-dressed. I don't think you will."
Now you've told me about it, I'll try not to.
I think you'll want a good man, though, to keep you up to the mark. You might get slack, don't you know?
No, no; I can't have a valet, and I won't, said Septimus Rainer firmly.
Ah, we shall have to see what Dorothy says about that, said Tinker with a smile of doubtful meaning.
That's playing it rather low down on me, isn't it? said Septimus Rainer reproachfully. "It's—it's coercion."
Oh, if you have to wear clothes, you may as well do it thoroughly. You see, it's been put into my hands, and I must go through with it, said Tinker apologetically.
The millionaire gazed at him ruefully.
And now, Tinker went on, regarding him with another cold, calculating air, that of a proprietor, "I think I'll take you to a hair-dresser, and have your hair and beard dealt with."
Crop away! crop away! said the millionaire.
Tinker took him to a hair-dresser, and told the man exactly how he wanted the hair and beard cut. "He'd make you a French American, too, if I let him," he said to Septimus Rainer.
When the hair-dresser had done, the millionaire looked at himself in the glass with approval, and said, "Well, I do look spick and span, though gritty; yes—sir."
You'll look better when you have your clothes, said Tinker. "And, now, I think you must want a drink."
That is so, sonny. This is dry work, this getting clothes.
Tinker took him to a café, adorned with an American bar. Septimus Rainer lighted a cigar and refreshed himself with the whiskey sour of his native land; Tinker ate ices. Over these agreeable occupations they talked; and the millionaire derived considerable entertainment and no little instruction from his young companion's views of life on the Mediterranean littoral, illustrated from the passing pleasure-seekers.
When they got into the railway carriage on their return, he lighted another cigar, and lay back in the seat with the content of a man who had done a hard day's work. But presently he roused himself and said, "I've been thinking about those kidnapping scum. They were going to ransom Dorothy for three hundred thousand dollars, you said."
Yes, a million and a half francs, said Tinker.
Well, sonny, I've been thinking I must pay you fifty thousand dollars over that business. You took a big risk holding up a gang like that.
It wasn't me: Selina held them up, said Tinker quickly.
Selina did her share, and I shan't forget it. But it was your show. I think fifty thousand dollars would be fair.
Tinker's face went very grave. "Thank you very much," he said slowly, "but I couldn't take any money for helping Dorothy out of a mess. When I've taken money for helping people, they've been strangers—like the Kernabies and Blumenruth. But Dorothy is different—quite different."
Septimus Rainer pulled at his beard, and said in a grumbling voice, "That's all very well, sonny; but where do I come in? You get my little girl out of a tight place—a very tight place—and you save me three hundred thousand dollars. Business is business, and I ought to pay."
It is rather awkward for you, said Tinker, looking at him with a puzzled face and knitted brow. "But I think the thing is that it wasn't business. I like Dorothy—I like her very much. She's a friend. And there can't be any business between friends, don't you know?"
Shake, sonny, said the millionaire, holding out his hand. "I'm glad you and she are friends."
Tinker shook his hand gravely.
When they came back to the hotel, at the sight of her father, Dorothy cried, "Oh, papa, what have you been doing? You look ten years younger. And what a nice shape your head is!"
Yes, said Septimus Rainer, "I pride myself on the shape of my head. But it's all your young friend's doing."
Wait till his clothes come, said Tinker with modest pride.
I shall look fine in those clothes, I tell you—fine, said Septimus Rainer, and his air was almost fatuous.
I think he ought to have a valet, said Tinker. "You can't learn about clothes all out of your own head. Either you must have always worn the right clothes, or you want someone to teach you."
Of course, you must have a valet, papa, said Dorothy.
I can't—I can't have a man messing about me, said Septimus Rainer in a tone of almost pathetic pleading.
I'm afraid there's no way out of it, said Tinker firmly.
I'm sure there isn't if Tinker says so. He knows all about these things, said Dorothy. "You must be brave, papa: you really must."
I'll find him one, said Tinker.
Septimus Rainer yielded with a gesture of hopeless resignation.
该作者其它作品
《Arsene Lupin》
《The Three Eyes19章节》
Septimus Rainer was very soon admitted to the frankest intimacy of the little circle. An American of the best type, he had enjoyed the advantage in his childhood of the stern and hardening training of life on a little farm, and the supreme advantage of a good mother. He had fought his way to fortune with clean hands, winning always his battles by sheer superiority of brain, never by laxity of principle; no man could lay to his charge that he had dealt him a foul blow. He had come, therefore, through that demoralising fight with a clean heart, his native shrewdness increased a thousand-fold, his native simplicity unabated. It was this combination of shrewdness and simplicity which had caused him to send Dorothy, bitter as it had been to part with her, to Europe to finish her education. His gorge had risen at the intolerable snobbishness which is corroding the wealthy sections of American society; he had made up his mind that she had a better chance of obtaining the necessary social acquirements, while remaining a gentlewoman, in Europe; and had acted with great success on the conviction.
After a few days' natural restlessness he found himself developing an admirable capacity, very rare in millionaires, of being for a while idle. This agreeable circumstance was the natural effect of the surroundings in which he found himself; not so much of the place, for at Monte Carlo pleasure is a somewhat strenuous affair, but of the fact that his new friends had a trained power of taking life easily. Tinker, Sir Tancred, and Lord Crosland would have admitted him to their intimacy for the sake of Dorothy; but simple souls themselves, they recognised in him a kindred simplicity, and admitted him to their friendship. He possessed, to a great degree, the American adaptability; and it is not surprising that he fell into their way of taking life easily. It was only for the time being. The millionaire is a good deal of the Sindbad, and he must bear the burden and go the way of the golden Old Man of the Sea he has made for himself. But Septimus Rainer enjoyed this respite from the tyranny of his millions with the whole-hearted pleasure of a child. He enjoyed the brightness and glitter of the place; he enjoyed the pleasant meals and pleasant talks with pleasant companions; he enjoyed a little gambling at the tables; and he enjoyed with a childlike zest playing with Dorothy and the children, displaying latent and unsuspected talents for piracy, brigandage, and conspiracy, which were no less a glory than a surprise to him. Indeed, at times he was very like a young schoolboy let loose after many hours' school.
Tinker was of perpetual interest to him, and he listened with greedy ears to the wisdom of the world of that sage, on the rare occasions when some matter or other set it flowing from his lips. On the other hand, he found in him an absorbed listener to the stories of his less involved financial battles, and spared no pains to make them clear to him. Sir Tancred interested him little less, and he was always deploring the loss the splendid army of millionaires had suffered by his excellent abilities not having been forced to flow in a business channel.
He was distressed, too, about the waste of Tinker, and adjured his father to hand him over to him to be made a millionaire of.
But Sir Tancred turned a deaf ear to his petition, and said, "Of course, if Tinker went into business he would become a millionaire. And it's a fashionable occupation, and I've nothing to say against it. But over here, with some of us, there are still other things besides money—not that there will be long—and for my part I shall be content if he grows up a gentleman, as he will. Business might spoil that; and at any rate I won't chance it. And, after all, my step-mother won't live to much more than eighty, so that he will have thirty thousand a year before he's forty-five."
That's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, said Septimus Rainer thoughtfully, and he pressed the point no more.
He was far too shrewd not to perceive the attraction Sir Tancred and Dorothy had for one another, and he regarded it with entire content. Whatever he might have said against Sir Tancred's manner of life, he had a genuine respect for his qualities; and he had learned from Dorothy something of the causes of his falling into that manner of life. He had a strong belief that once married to her he would change; he thought it likely that he might even embark on the career of politics, which he understood to be, in England, a quite respectable pursuit. He was aware, of course, that he could easily buy her an English peer or a foreign Prince for husband. But Sir Tancred's rank and birth satisfied his simple tastes; and he was quite sure that he might ransack the English peerage and the Courts of Europe without finding her as good a husband. He did not perceive that his millions barred Sir Tancred's path.
Dorothy perceived it only too soon. She found the growth of her intimacy with Sir Tancred checked; it did not lessen, indeed, but it did not increase. A shadow had fallen across it, and he no longer talked to her in the tone of half-affectionate familiarity he had grown to use with her, he was more reserved. She chafed at it, but she was not greatly downcast; she only wished that the kidnappers had had the grace to leave her in her part of the penniless governess, a few weeks longer. She felt that, then, all the millions in the world would not have barred Sir Tancred's way. Indeed, she had no reason to be greatly downcast. This sudden setting of her out of his reach had inevitably increased her attraction for Sir Tancred; it had deepened his liking to a far stronger feeling. He cursed the unkindly Fates, and told himself that his only course was to fly; that the more he saw of her, the more painful would that flight be. But he could by no means constrain himself to forego the delight of her presence; and, though he never let a word of his love escape his lips, his eyes and the tones of his voice told her of it often enough.
Tinker was not long providing Septimus Rainer with a carefully chosen English valet, whom he found a pleasant, unassuming fellow, very easy to get on with. Then the millionaire began to talk of engaging a secretary, for his millions were beginning to make themselves troublesome; and he begged Tinker, since he had found him so unembarrassing a valet, to keep his eyes about him for a secretary also; but Tinker said that Monte Carlo was no place to find secretaries who understood business.
One morning he saw Madame Séraphine de Belle-Île drive up to the hotel. She wore a mournful air; and he perceived at once that she was no longer clad in a bright scarlet costume, but in one of a dull crimson, more in keeping with her air of mournfulness. She cut him deliberately as she passed into the hotel.
He was exceedingly angry; no human being had ever cut him before, and he flushed with mortification. He walked down to the gardens pondering the affront; and his anger grew. Then of a sudden it flashed on him that she had found out Mr. Arthur Courtnay, and that the warning he had given her had had something to do with that discovery. She had cut him by way of showing her gratitude in a truly womanly fashion. With the smile of an angel indulgent to human frailty he forgave her, and thrust the matter out of his mind.
That night at dinner, or rather at dessert, Lord Crosland informed them that he was engaged to Claire Wigram; and when they had done congratulating him, he told them that in a few days he would be leaving for England with the Wigrams.
Well, said Sir Tancred, "the season here is coming to an end; and, at any rate, the weather for the last few days has been too hot to do these children any good. I think we will move northward, too."
It will be the break-up of a very pleasant party, said Septimus Rainer with a sigh, and Dorothy's face fell.
Why should it break up? said Lord Crosland. "You'd better all come."
No; I'm not coming to England, yet, said Sir Tancred. "After all this heat it would be too great a risk to face straight away the bitter English summer. I thought of moving northward gently to Biarritz, or I have a fancy for Arcachon. Wednesday would be as good a day as any."
There was a pause; then Tinker said thoughtfully, "Wednesday is rather soon, sir." And, turning to Dorothy, he said, "Do you think that you could pack by Wednesday? Of course, it doesn't really matter, for you could come on after us; but I don't want Elsie to lose a day's work."
Septimus Rainer, Sir Tancred, and Lord Crosland looked a little taken aback; it struck them all three with the same sense of oddness that a small boy should direct the movements of the daughter of a millionaire.
Oh, I can easily pack up by Wednesday, said Dorothy, as if it were a matter of course that he should direct her movements.
That's all right, said Tinker.
But I don't understand, said Septimus Rainer. "Has Dorothy bound herself to do as you tell her?"
Well, I suppose she has, as far as teaching Elsie goes. And I explained when she took the post that we travelled about a good deal, said Tinker carelessly.
But I can't have this, said Septimus Rainer.
Well, she can always give me a month's notice, and then the engagement ends, said Tinker. He was prepared for the discussion, and resolved that his father and Dorothy should not be separated as long as he could prevent it.
Do you mean she isn't free for a month from now? But—but it's absurd! said Septimus Rainer.
That's what the papers call the rights of the employer, said Tinker with a singularly sad sweetness.
Oh, you wouldn't insist on that right, not if you were asked nicely, would you? said Lord Crosland.
Oh, yes, I should! said Tinker cheerfully. "You see, I'm responsible for Elsie, and she will never get such a good governess as Dorothy again. So she must have as much of her as possible."
Thank you; it's nice to be appreciated, said Dorothy, smiling at him.
Ah, said Septimus Rainer with the air of one who has found a solution of the problem, "but Dorothy can always forfeit a month's salary in lieu of notice."
Oh, I couldn't think of it, papa! cried Dorothy. "I should lose—I should lose five pounds!"
This beats the Dutch! This is avarice! I allow you four thousand dollars a month! said Septimus Rainer.
Ah, but this is my own earned money! Dorothy protested, flushing and smiling.
Suddenly there came a twinkle into Septimus Rainer's eye. "Well," he said, "if you're ground down under the heel of a grasping employer, you're ground down, and you must go to Arcachon. But I shall come, too."
Of course, said Tinker. "You're—you're one of the family."
Thank you, said Septimus Rainer. "I'm told that you English are slow about it. But when you make a man at home, you do make him at home. And I've always wanted to be adopted."
On the eve of their departure for Arcachon, Tinker and Elsie were sitting in the gardens of the Temple of Fortune, taking a well-earned rest after a farewell bolt into the Salles de Jeu, in which Elsie also had played a gallant and successful part, for the somewhat obscure reason that it was the last bolt: so strengthening to her character had been companionship with Tinker. She was receiving, with modest pride, his congratulations on having penetrated deeper than himself, to the innermost shrine, the Trente et Quarante table, in fact, when they saw coming towards them a large, majestic, white-haired lady, a small, subdued, mouse-haired lady, and a man of doubtful appearance.
Without causing him to pause in his congratulations, Tinker's active mind had placed the two women as a wealthy Englishwoman and her companion, and was hesitating whether to place the man in the class of Continental Guides or private detectives, when he pointed to the two children, and said something to the majestic lady.
That's the little boy, is it? Then you two go and sit on the next seat while I talk to him, said the majestic lady in a voice which lost in pleasantness what it gained in loudness; and she came to the seat on which Tinker and Elsie sat, while her attendants walked on.
Now to call him a little boy was by no means the quickest way to Tinker's heart, and he watched her draw near with a cold eye. But all the same when she made as if to sit down, he rose and raised his hat with a charming smile. She sat down and looked him over with a cool consideration which provoked his fastidiousness to no admiration of her breeding. Then she said:
Are you Sir Tancred Beauleigh's little boy?
I am Hildebrand Anne Beauleigh, said Tinker in a faintly corrective tone quite lost on her complacent mind.
Hildebrand Anne! Hildebrand Anne! She called you Hildebrand Anne, did she? The impudence of these minxes! said the majestic lady, and she sniffed like a lady of the lower-middle classes.
At once Tinker knew that she was Lady Beauleigh, and that she was speaking of his mother. But his face never changed; only the pupils of his eyes contracted a little; and he drew a quiet, deep breath of satisfaction. He had always hoped for an interview with her, his father's step-mother, and he knew that he had the advantage; for he was armed with a very fair knowledge of her, imparted to him by his father, who thought it well to put him on his guard; and of him she knew nothing.
Who's this little girl? said Lady Beauleigh, surveying Elsie with her insolent stare. "Send her away. I want to talk to you alone."
This is my adopted sister, Elsie. You may talk before her; it doesn't matter how confidential it is. I always tell her everything, said Tinker in a tone of kindly but exasperating patronage.
I don't care! Go away, little girl! said Lady Beauleigh, and Tinker was pleased to see the colour rise in her cheeks.
He stayed Elsie, who was rising to go, with a wave of his hand and said gently, "Is it important talk?"
Yes; it is! snapped Lady Beauleigh.
Then I'd rather she stopped. My father says you should always have a witness to important talk, said Tinker, and he smiled at her.
Stuff and nonsense! I'm your grandmother! cried Lady Beauleigh angrily.
Ah, then your name is Vane, said Tinker sweetly.
Vane! Vane! Lady Beauleigh gasped rather than spoke the hated name. "It's nothing of the kind! It's Beauleigh! I'm Lady Beauleigh!"
I'm afraid there must be some mistake. You can't be my grandmother on my father's side. My father's mother is dead, said Tinker in a tone which almost seemed to apologise for her error.
You must be very stupid, or very ignorant! cried Lady Beauleigh. "I'm your grandfather's second wife, as you ought to know!"
Oh, I know, now, said Tinker; and his face shone with his sudden enlightenment. "You keep a bank."
I—keep—a—bank? said Lady Beauleigh in a dreadful voice.
Oh, not a roulette bank or baccarat bank, said Tinker with well-affected hastiness. "One of the shop kind—where they sell money—with glass doors."
My father was a banker, if that's what you mean, said Lady Beauleigh. "But a bank isn't a shop."
Oh, I always think it a kind of shop, said Tinker with the dispassionate air of a professor discussing a problem in the Higher Mathematics. "It's as well to lump all these—these commercial things together, isn't it?" And he was very pleased with the word commercial.
No: it isn't! A bank isn't a shop, you stupid little boy! cried Lady Beauleigh hotly.
Well, just as you like, said Tinker with graceful surrender. "I only call it a shop because it's convenient."
A boy of your age ought not to think about convenience. You ought to have been taught to keep things clear and distinct, said Lady Beauleigh in a heavy, didactic voice.
Oh, it's quite clear to me, really, that a bank's a shop; but we won't talk about it, if you're ashamed of it. After all, one doesn't talk about trade, does one? said Tinker with a return to his kindly but exasperating patronage.
Ashamed of it? I'm not ashamed of it! said Lady Beauleigh in the roar of a wounded lioness.
No, no; of course not! I only thought you were! I made a mistake! said Tinker quickly, with an infuriating show of humouring her.
I'm proud of it! Proud of it! said Lady Beauleigh thickly. "And when you grow up and understand things, you'll wish your father had been a banker, too!"
I don't think so, said Tinker; and he smiled at her very pleasantly. "I'm quite satisfied with my father as he is. I'd really rather that he was a gentleman."
A banker is a gentleman! cried Lady Beauleigh.
Yes, yes, of course, said Tinker, humouring her again. "He's—he's a commercial gentleman."
Lady Beauleigh could find no words. Never in the course of her domineering life had she been raised to such an exaltation of whole-souled exasperation. She could only glare at the suave disposer of her long-cherished, long-asserted pretensions; and she glared with a fury which made Elsie, who had edged little by little to the extreme edge of the seat, rise softly and take up a safer position, standing three yards away.
Tinker took advantage of Lady Beauleigh's helpless speechlessness to say thoughtfully, "But about your being my grandmother? If you're not my father's mother or my mother's mother, you can't really be my grandmother. You must be my step-grandmother.
I should think, Tinker went on, and his thoughtfulness became a thoughtful earnestness, "that you must be what people call a connection by marriage; not quite one of the family."
The thoughtfulness cleared from Tinker's brow, and he said with a pleasant smile, "But that's got nothing to do with what you came to talk about. You said it was important. What did you want to say?"
Lady Beauleigh remembered suddenly that she had come on an errand connected with her promotion of the glory of the Beauleighs. She swallowed down her fury, wiped her face with her handkerchief, and said in a hoarse and somewhat shaky voice, "I came to make you an offer."
Tinker beamed on her.
You must be tired of this beggarly life, going about from pillar to post, living in wretched Continental hotels, with no pocket money.
Tinker raised his eyebrows.
I know what your father's life is, just a mere penniless adventurer's.
Tinker beamed no more.
And I came to offer to take you to live with me at Beauleigh Court. It's a beautiful big house in the country with woods all around it, and hunting and fishing and shooting and tennis-courts and fruit-gardens, and a cricket-ground, everything that a boy could want.
And you, said Tinker in the expressionless tone of one adding an item to a catalogue.
Yes; and me to look after you. You should have a bicycle. And she paused to let the splendour of the gift sink in.
I have a bicycle, said Tinker.
Well—two bicycles—and a pony——
I don't like ponies—they're too slow, said Tinker in a weary voice. "I always ride a horse."
Well, you should have a horse—a horse of your own.
What's the hunting like? But, there, I know; it can't be up to much; it never is in those southern counties. I always hunt in Leicestershire. I've got used to it.
You hunt in Leicestershire? said Lady Beauleigh with some surprise.
Oh course. Where does one hunt? said Tinker, echoing her surprise.
But—but—where does your horse come from? I know your father can't afford to keep horses!
Sometimes he can, said Tinker. "And if he has had to sell them, a dozen people will always mount us."
Lady Beauleigh paused; and then she made the last, lavish bid. "And I would allow you a hundred a year pocket-money. Why—why, you would be a little Prince!"
A little Prince! And learn geography! No, thank you! said Tinker, startled out of his calm. "Besides," he added carelessly, "I've made five thousand in the last year."
Five thousand what?
Pounds.
Come, come, said Lady Beauleigh, shaking her head, "you mustn't tell me lies."
It isn't a lie! Tinker never tells lies, broke in Elsie hotly.
Hold your tongue, you impertinent little minx! said Lady Beauleigh sharply. "Who asked you to speak?"
I think you're a horrid—— said Elsie, and was checked by Tinker's upraised hand.
And when I died, Lady Beauleigh went on, turning again to Tinker, "I should leave you thirty thousand a year—think of it—thirty thousand a year!"
It all sounds very nice, said Tinker in a painfully indifferent tone. "But I'm afraid it wouldn't do."
Wouldn't do? Why wouldn't it do? To live in a beautiful big house in the country, and have everything a boy could want! Why wouldn't it do? cried Lady Beauleigh, excited by opposition to a feverish desire to compass the end on which her heart had been set for many months.
Do you really want to know, said Tinker very gently, but with a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
Yes; I insist on knowing! cried Lady Beauleigh.
Well, said Tinker slowly, pronouncing every word with a very deliberate distinctness, "we shouldn't get on, you and I. I don't know how it is; but I never get on with people who keep shops or banks. I'm afraid you're not quite—well-bred."
Stout Lady Beauleigh sprang to her feet.
Ah, well, said Tinker quietly, "you treated my father and mother very cruelly, you've just said rude things about both of them, and you've been rude to Elsie. The fact is, I don't see that I want a step-grandmother at all; and I can't be expected to want an ill-bred one anyway. So—so—I disown you."
Lady Beauleigh's face quivered with rage; she gathered herself together as if to box Tinker's ears; thought better of it, and hurried away.
Tinker and Elsie looked at one another, and laughed softly.
Horrid old woman, said Elsie.
A dreadful person, said Tinker.
As Lady Beauleigh strode out of the gardens, she came full upon Sir Tancred and Dorothy. He raised his hat, she tried to glare through him, and glared at him.
That's my step-mother, said Sir Tancred. "I wonder what's the matter with her. She looks upset."
Upset! Why, she looked furious—malignant! said Dorothy.
Then they saw Tinker and Elsie coming towards them.
I see, said Sir Tancred softly.
Oh, if she's met my young charges! said Dorothy, and she threw out her hands.
Have you been doing anything to your grandmother, Tinker? cried Sir Tancred.
Well—I disowned her, said Tinker.
Disowned her!
Yes; I had to, said Tinker with a faint regret. "She was rude, and she was wearing a gown which would have stood up by itself if she had got out of it—at Monte Carlo—in April—it's impossible!"
He shrugged his shoulders.
Dorothy sat gazing over that charming gulf, charming alike for its scenery and its oysters, the Gulf of Arcachon. She gazed on it without seeing it; her beautiful face was clouded, and her brow was puckered in a wondering perplexity.
Tinker sat on the ground near her, his chin on his knees, observing her with a sympathetic understanding which would have disquieted her not a little, had she not been too busy with her thoughts to notice it.
They were still and silent for a long while, until she sighed; then he said, with unfeigned sadness, "I'm beginning to think he never will."
Who never will what? said Dorothy, awaking from her reflections, and extremely disconcerted by the exactness with which Tinker's remark echoed them.
My father—ask you to marry him, said Tinker succinctly.
Tinker! cried Dorothy faintly, and she flushed a very fine red.
It's all very well to say 'Tinker!' like that, he said, shaking his head very wisely. "But it's much better to look at things straight, don't you know? You often get a little forrarder that way."
You are a dreadful little boy, said Dorothy with conviction.
Yes, yes; I'm not blind, said Tinker patiently. "But the point is, that my father is ever so much in love with you, and he'll never ask you to marry him, because you're too rich. I'm sure I've given you every chance," he added with a sigh.
You have? said Dorothy, gasping.
Yes; I'm always seeing that no one makes a third when you and he are together—on moonlit nights and picnics, and so on, don't you know?
Dorothy laughed, in spite of her discomfort, at this frank discussion of her secret. "But this is inveterate match-making," she said. "Why do you do it?"
Oh, I think it would be a good thing. You both want it badly, and you'd get on awfully well together. Besides, you're neither of you as cheerful as you used to be, and I don't like it; it bothers me.
It's very good of you to let it, said Dorothy, smiling.
Not at all. And Elsie and I would have a settled home, too. It's very funny; but sometimes I get tired of living in hotels.
I'm sure you do, said Dorothy with sympathy.
Well, have you got any idea how it can be worked?
No! cried Dorothy, shocked, and flushing again; "I haven't! I wouldn't have!"
That's silly, when it would be such a good thing, said Tinker with a disapproving air. "However, I suppose I can work it myself. I generally have to when I want anything done."
What are you going to do? cried Dorothy in great alarm. "Oh, I do wish I hadn't said anything, or listened to you!"
I don't know what I'm going to do. These affairs of the heart are always difficult, said Tinker with the air of a sage who has observed many generations of unfortunate lovers.
I won't have you do anything; I forbid it! cried Dorothy.
You shouldn't order your employer about, said Tinker with a smile which, on any face less angelic, would have been a grin. "Besides, I'm responsible, and I must do what's good for you. And, after all, I shan't give you away, don't you know?"
Oh, do be careful! said Dorothy plaintively.
I will, said Tinker; and he rose and sauntered off along the promenade.
Dorothy looked after him with mingled feelings, dread of what he might do, vexation, and a little shame that he should have so easily surprised her secret; though, indeed, she preferred that Tinker should have discovered it rather than anyone else in the world. Then her sure knowledge of his discretion eased her anxiety, and the consideration of his able imagination and versatile ingenuity set a new and strong hope springing up in her.
Tinker strolled along to the Café du Printemps, and found his father sitting before it on the usual uncomfortable little chair before the usual white-topped table. He saw that his father's face wore the same expression as Dorothy's had worn before he had insisted on coming to her aid. Then he saw, with something of a shock, that a glass of absinthe stood on the table. Things must, indeed, be in a bad way if his father drank absinthe at half-past ten in the morning.
However, he hid his disapproval, and sitting down on another uncomfortable chair, he said gently, "What does it mean when a lady is compromised, sir?"
It means that some accident or other has given malignant fools a chance of gossipping about her, said Sir Tancred in an unamiable tone.
And the man has to marry her?
Of course he has, snapped Sir Tancred.
Ah! said Tinker with supreme thoughtful satisfaction.
His father looked at him for a good minute with considerable suspicion, wondering what new mischief he was hatching. But Tinker looked like a guileless seraph pondering the innocent joys of the Islands of the Blessed, to a degree which made such a suspicion a very shameful thing indeed. Partly reassured, Sir Tancred returned to his brooding: he was angry with himself because he felt helpless in an impasse. On the one hand, he could not bring himself to fly from Dorothy; on the other, he could not bring himself to abate his pride, and ask her to marry him. She was so rich; Septimus Rainer had talked of settling five million dollars on her. He looked again at the pondering Tinker; and his helpless irritation found the natural English vent in grumbling.
Look here, he said, half querulously, half whimsically, "I told you that if you went on adding to our household, I should be travelling about Europe with a caravan. You began by adopting Elsie as a sister, and I said nothing. Then you added Miss Rainer as her governess, and I warned you. Miss Rainer added her father, a millionaire, and he added a maid, a valet, two secretaries, a courier, and a private detective. All these people, I know them well, will marry; and I shall be a patriarch travelling with my tribe. It must stop."
Tinker sighed. "We are a large household—twelve of us, with Selina," he said thoughtfully. "But you might make it more compact, sir."
More compact—how?
You might marry Dorothy; and then you and she could count as one.
A sudden light of exasperation brightened Sir Tancred's eyes, and he made a grab at Tinker's arm. His hand closed on empty air; Tinker was flying like the wind along the promenade.
Tinker! roared Sir Tancred; but Tinker went round a corner at the moment at which only the T of his name could fairly be expected to have reached him. Sir Tancred ground his teeth, and then he laughed.
Tinker made a circuit, and came down to the sea, where he found Elsie playing with two little English girls staying at Arcachon with their mother. At once she deserted them for him, and when he had withdrawn her to a distance, he said, "I've hit on a way of getting them married."
No! Have you? You are clever! she cried with the ungrudging admiration she always accorded him.
Clever? It only wants a little common-sense, said Tinker with some disdain.
I shall be glad.
So shall I. It'll be a weight off my mind, don't you know? said Tinker with a sigh.
I'm sure it will, said the sympathetic Elsie.
It must be awfully nice to be in love, she added with conviction.
Now, look here, said Tinker in a terrible voice, "if I catch you falling in love, I'll—I'll shake you!"
But—but, I may be in love—ever so much, for anything you know, said Elsie somewhat haughtily.
You are not, said Tinker sternly. "Your appetite is all right. Don't talk any more nonsense, but come along, we've got to get ready for the picnic."
At half-past eleven the two children went on board the Petrel, a little steam yacht of a shallow draught adapted to the shoals of the Gulf, which Septimus Rainer had hired from a member of the Bordeaux Yacht Club. They found Dorothy and Sir Tancred already on board, and were told that a cablegram from New York had given her father, his secretaries, and the telegraph office of Arcachon a day's work, and prevented him from coming with them. Tinker had known this fact all the morning, but he did not say so. His manner to his father showed a serene unconsciousness of any cloud upon their relations.
The Petrel was soon crossing the Gulf in an immensely important way, at her full speed of eight knots an hour. In pursuance of his policy Tinker took Elsie forward, and left Dorothy and his father to entertain one another on the quarter-deck. The two children amused themselves very well talking to Alphonse, the steersman, and Adolphe, the engineer, thick-set, thick-witted men, who combined the picturesqueness of organ-grinders with the stolidity of agriculturalists; Nature had plainly intended them for the plough, and Circumstance had pitched them into seafaring.
An hour's steering brought them across the Gulf. They landed, and made their déjeuner at a little auberge, or rather cabaret, affected by fishermen, and the folk of the Landes, off grey mullet, fresh from the Bay of Biscay, grilled over a fire of pine-cones, with a second course of ring-doves roasted before it.
After their coffee Tinker suggested that they should cross over to the strip of sand which at that point separates the Gulf from the Bay, and the others fell in with his humour. They crossed over and landed in the yacht's dinghy. Tinker insisted on taking two rugs, though both Dorothy and his father objected that the sand was quite dry enough to sit on. However, when they came to the beach of the Bay, Sir Tancred spread them out, and he and Dorothy sat on them. The two children wandered away, and presently Elsie found herself holding Tinker's hand, and running hard through the pines towards the landing-place.
In answer to Tinker's hail, Alphonse fetched them aboard in the dingey, and the honest, unsuspecting mariners accepted his instructions to take them for a cruise, and come back later for his father and the lady, without a murmur. But no sooner was the Petrel under weigh, than he strode to the middle of the quarter-deck, folded his arms, scowled darkly in the direction of his father and Dorothy, so heedless of their plight, and growled in his hoarsest, most piratical voice:
Marooned! Marooned!
Slowly he paced the deck, with arms still folded, casting the piercing glances of a bird of prey across the waters; then of a sudden he roared once more with the true piratical hoarseness, "All hands on deck to splice the main brace!"
Alphonse and Adolphe did not understand his nautical English; but when Elsie came from the cabin with a bottle of cognac and two glasses, their slow, wide grins showed a perfect comprehension. Tinker gave them the cognac, and took the wheel. Then he became absorbed in steering, and sternly rejected all further consideration of his gift; he would have neither hand nor part in hocussing French agriculturalists posing as mariners.
But for all his absorption in his steering, and his care to look past them as they sat in more than fraternal affection on the deck, with the bottle between them, it was somehow forced on him, probably by the noise they made, that they proceeded from a gentle cheerfulness through a wild and songful hilarity, broken by interludes in which either described to the other with eloquent enthusiasm the charms of the lass who loved him best, to a tearful melancholy, from which they were rapt away into a sodden and stertorous slumber.
At the third snore Tinker turned to Elsie, who sat by him looking rather scared by the changing humours of the agricultural mariners, and said with a sardonic and ferocious smile, "The ship is ours."
At once they divested themselves of the hats of civilisation, and tied round their heads the red handkerchiefs proper to their profession; then he gave her the wheel, and going to the cabin, came back with a black flag neatly embroidered in white with a skull and crossbones, Dorothy's work, and sternly bade an imaginary quartermaster run up the Jolly Roger. Then, as quartermaster, he ran up that emblem of his dreadful trade himself; became captain once more, and, with folded arms and corrugated brow surveyed it gloomily. Then he went down to the engine-room, put the yacht on half-speed, and, as well as he could, stoked the fires.
For the next three hours the Petrel forgot all the innocent traditions of her youth as a pleasure boat, and traversed the Gulf of Arcachon a shameless, ravening pirate, while Captain Hildebrand, the Scourge of the Spanish Main, issued curt, sanguinary orders to an imaginary but as blood-dyed a gang of villains as ever scuttled an Indiaman. The Jolly Roger and three or four blank shots from the little signal gun drove three panic-stricken fishing boats from their fishing-ground as fast as oars and sails could carry them, to spread abroad a legend of piracy in the Gulf which would last a generation.
It was nearly sunset before Captain Hildebrand returned to the serious consideration of his business as Cupid's ally. Then he set the Petrel going dead slow, ran her gently on to a sandbank, and let fall the anchor, which was hanging from her bows. This done, again a pirate, he looked at the recumbent and still stertorous Alphonse and Adolphe with cold, cruel eyes, and said, "It's time these lubbers walked the plank."
Ay, ay, sir! said Elsie cheerfully; and then she added, in a doubtful voice, "But won't the poor men get drowned?"
Not in four feet of water, said Captain Hildebrand; and he set briskly about the preparations for the fell deed. With Elsie's help he brought a plank to the gangway; and then, either taking him by an arm, they dragged the grunting Adolphe slowly down the deck, and arranged him on the plank. With a capstan bar, and many a hearty "Yo, heave ho!" they levered the plank out over the side till Adolphe's weight tilted it up, and he soused into the water.
For a moment he disappeared, then he rose spluttering and choking, sank again, found his footing, and stood up, roaring like a flabbergasted bull. Captain Hildebrand lay quietly down on the deck, and writhed and kicked in spasms of racking mirth; but his trusty lieutenant, after laughing a while, looked grave, and said, "The poor man will take cold."
I have no sympathy with drunkards, said Captain Hildebrand with cold severity; but he rose, and, going forward, by kicking Alphonse hard and freely in the ribs, roused him from his dream of the lass who loved a sailor, and said, "Adolphe has fallen overboard."
It took some time for the information to penetrate Alphonse's skull. When it did, he was all vivid alertness, staggered swiftly aft to the gangway, and in rather less than five seconds, with no conspicuous agility, had precipitated himself into Adolphe's arms. They rose, clinging to one another, and both roared like bulls, while the shrieking Tinker danced lightly round the deck.
Presently he recovered enough to throw them a rope, and they climbed on board: no difficult feat, seeing that the deck was not two feet above their heads. Before they thought of the yacht they went to the forecastle and changed their wet clothes, while the dusk deepened. Tinker went to the galley, and made tea. He had brought it to the cabin, and he and Elsie were making a well-earned and hearty meal, and discoursing with gusto of their blood-dyed career during the afternoon, when Alphonse, very sad and glum, came and told them that the yacht was aground, and Adolphe was getting up full steam to get her off. Tinker with great readiness said he would come up and help.
In half an hour he heard the rattle of the propeller, and, coming on deck, said he would go to the bows while Alphonse took the wheel, and Adolphe worked the engines.
He went right forward, and peered into the darkness. Adolphe set the engines going full speed, reversed, and Tinker cried, "She's moving!"
He saw the anchor chain slowly tauten, then the Petrel moved no more. The propeller thrashed away, but to no purpose, and to his great joy he was sure that the anchor held her. However, he cheered them on to persevere, and for nearly half an hour the propeller thrashed away. Then they gave it up, sat down gloomily on the hatch of the engine room, and lighted their pipes. Tinker and Elsie went back to the cabin, rolled themselves in rugs, and were soon enjoying the innocent sleep of childhood.
It was twelve o'clock when Tinker awoke, and at once he went on deck and found that Alphonse, by way of keeping watch, had gone comfortably asleep in the bows, while Adolphe snored from the forecastle. He kicked Alphonse awake, and said, "Don't you think you could get her off if you hauled up the anchor?"
For a minute or two Alphonse turned the idea hazily over in his apology for a mind; then, with a hasty exclamation, he ran to the side, and saw dimly the taut anchor chain. He blundered below, lugged Adolphe out of his berth and on deck, and for five excited minutes they explained to one another that the anchor was embedded in the sandbank, and that it held the Petrel on it. Then soberly and slowly they got to work on the capstan, and hauled up the anchor. A dozen turns of the propeller drew the Petrel off the bank and into deep water. In three minutes they had her about and steamed off towards the marooned, while Tinker in the galley was heating water for coffee and making soup.
In the meanwhile Dorothy and Sir Tancred, ignorant of their plight, had spent a delightful afternoon exploring with a never-tiring interest one another's souls. For a long time she chided him gently for his aimless manner of living; and he defended himself with a half-mocking sadness. At about sunset they rose reluctantly, sighed with one accord that the pleasant hours were over, looked at one another with sudden questioning eyes at the sound of the sighs, and looked quickly away. They walked slowly, on feet reluctant to leave pleasant places, through the pines, silent, save that twice Sir Tancred sent his voice ringing among the trees in a call to Tinker. They came to the landing-place, to find an empty sea, and looked at one another blankly.
The children must have persuaded the men to take them for a cruise, said Sir Tancred.
But they're late coming back, said Dorothy.
For a while their eyes explored the corners and recesses of the Gulf within sight, but found no Petrel. Then Sir Tancred said, "Well, we must wait"; and spread a rug for her at the foot of a tree. He paced up and down before her, keeping an eye over the water and talking to her.
The dusk deepened and deepened, and at last it was quite dark.
We're in a fix, said Sir Tancred uneasily. "Of course, if we stay here they will come for us sooner or later, but goodness knows when. If we set out to walk to civilisation we shall doubtless in time strike it somewhere, but goodness knows where."
If we went along this strip and turned eastward at the end of it shouldn't we come to the railway? said Dorothy.
I don't know that we should. We should get into the Landes, and they're by way of being trackless. Anyhow it would mean walking for hours; and it is less exhausting for you to sit here. The Petrel must turn up sooner or later.
Remembering her talk with Tinker in the morning, Dorothy believed that it would be later—much later; but as she could hardly unfold her reasons for the belief, she said nothing.
For a long time they were silent. Listening to the faint thunder of the Bay behind them, the lapping of the water at their feet, and the stirring of the pines, she filled slowly with a sense of their aloofness from the world, and a perfect content in being out of it alone with him. For his part, Sir Tancred was ill at ease; he foresaw that unless the Petrel came soon a lot of annoying gossip might spring from their accident, and he was distressed on her account. On the other hand, he, too, found himself enjoying being alone with her out of the world.
At last she said softly, "I feel as though we were on a desolate, far-away island."
I wish to goodness we were! he cried, with a fervour which thrilled her.
You'd find it very dull, she said, with a faint, uncertain laugh.
Not with you, he said quietly.
She was silent; and he took another turn up and down before he said, half to himself, "It would simplify things so, we should be equal."
Equal?
Oh, not from the personal point of view! he said quickly. "You'd always be worth a hundred of me. But on a desolate island money wouldn't count."
Oh, money! she said with a faint disdain. "What has money to do with anything?"
He sighed, and continued his pacing.
Money is always an obstacle, he said presently. "Either there is too little of it, and that's an obstacle; or there is too much of it, and that's an obstacle."
I don't think papa would agree with you about too much money, said Dorothy.
I'm wondering what he will say if we don't turn up before morning, said Sir Tancred gloomily.
I suppose he'll say that it was an unfortunate accident.
Yes; but then, I ought to have protected you against unfortunate accidents. I'm afraid there'll be a lot of gossip.
Well, it wasn't your fault, said Dorothy carelessly.
Sir Tancred grew more and more unhappy. His watch told him that it was nearly ten o'clock, and there was no sign of the Petrel. Moreover, the sense of their aloofness from the world had taken a firmer hold on him, and it drew him and Dorothy nearer and nearer together. The feeling that the world, of which her money had grown the symbol, would again come between them, grew more and more intolerable.
At last it grew too strong for him, and he stopped before her and said, in a voice he could not keep firm, "About that wasted life of mine, Dorothy. Do you think you could do anything with it?"
Dorothy gasped. "I might—I might try," she said in a whisper.
He stooped down, picked her up, and kissed her. Then, with a profound sigh of relief and content, he sat down beside her, drew her to him, and leaned back against the tree; she was crying softly.
They were far away from the world, and for them time stood still. They did not see the approaching lights of the Petrel, or hear the throb of her screw; only the roaring hail of Alphonse awoke them from their dream.
When they came on board, the observant Tinker saw the flush which came and went in Dorothy's cheeks, and the new light in his father's eyes; he saw her genuine surprise at finding herself so hungry. He observed that his father was quite careless about the cause of the Petrel's long absence, and his angel face was wreathed with the contented smile of the truly meritorious.
After supper his father went on deck to watch the steering of the yacht; Elsie fell asleep; and Dorothy sat, lost in a dream.
Is it all right? said Tinker softly.
I don't know what you mean. You're a horrid scheming little boy, said Dorothy with shameless ingratitude.
Yes; but is it all right? said Tinker.
I shan't let you scheme like that when—when I'm your mother, said Dorothy with virtuous severity, and she blushed.
So it is all right, said Tinker, and he chuckled.