Set in Silver
sawdust. My quick, "I won't," didn't seem to encourage him a bit.
"Well," he said, in a duller tone, "we'll get out of this. It was very
kind of you to come and meet me. I see now I oughtn't to have asked it;
but to tell the truth, the thought of going to a girls' school, and
claiming you----"
"I quite understand," I nipped in. "This is much better. My luggage is
all here," I added. "I couldn't think where else to send it, as I didn't
know what your plans might be."
At that he looked annoyed again, but luckily, only with himself this
time. "I fear I am an ass where women's affairs are concerned," he said.
"Of course I ought to have thought about your luggage, and settled every
detail for you with Madame de Maluet, instead of trusting to her
discretion. Still, it does seem as if she----"
I wouldn't let him blame Madame; but I couldn't defend her without
risking danger for Ellaline and myself, because Madame's arrangements
were all perfect, if we hadn't secretly upset them. "I have so _little_
luggage," I broke in, trying to make up with emphasis for irrelevancy.
"And Madame considers me quite a grown-up person, I assure you."
"I suppose you are," he admitted, observing my inches with a worried
air. "I ought to have realized; but somehow or other I expected to find
a child."
"I shall be less bother to you than if I were a child," I consoled him.
This did make him smile again, for some reason, as he replied that he
wasn't sure. And we were starting to hook ourselves on to the tail end
of the dwindling procession, quite on friendly terms, when to my horror
that young English cadlet--or boundling, which you will--strolled calmly
out in front of us, and said, "How do you do, Sir Lionel Pendragon? I'm
afraid you don't remember me. Dick Burden. Anyhow, you'll recollect my
mother and aunt."
I had forgotten all about the creature, dearest; but there he had been
lurking, ready to pounce. And what bad luck that he should know
Ellaline's guardian, wasn't it?
At first I thought maybe he really had had business at the Gare de Lyon,
and that I'd partly misjudged him. And then it flashed into my head
that, on the contrary, he didn't really know Sir Lionel, but had
overheard the name, and was doing a "bluff" to get introduced to me.
Wasn't that a conceited idea? But neither was true. At least the latter
wasn't, I know, and I'm pretty sure the first wasn't. What I think, is
this: that he simply followed me to the Gare de Lyon for the "deviltry"
of the thing, and because he'd nothing better to do. That he hung about
in sheer curiosity, to see whom I was meeting; and that he recognized
the Dragon as an old acquaintance. I once fondly supposed coincidences
were remarkable and rare events, but I've known ever since I've known
the troubles of life that it's only agreeable ones which are rare, such
as coming across your long-lost millionaire-uncle who's decided to leave
you all his money, just as you'd made up your mind to commit suicide or
marry a Jewish diamond merchant. Disagreeable coincidences sit about on
damp clouds ready to fall on you the minute they think you don't expect
them, and they're more likely to occur than not. That's my experience.
Evidently the Dragon did remember Dick's mother and aunt, for the first
blankness of his expression brightened into intelligence with the
mention of the youth's female belongings. He held out his hand
cordially, and remarked that of course he remembered Mrs. Burden and
Mrs. Senter. As for Dick, he had grown out of all recollection.
"It was a good many years ago," returned the said Dick, hastening to
disprove the slur of youthfulness. "It was just before I went to
Sandhurst. But you haven't changed. I knew you at once."
"On leave, I suppose?" suggested Sir Lionel.
"No," said Dick, "I'm not in the army. Failed. Truth is, I didn't want
to get in. Wasn't cut out for it. There's only one profession I care
for."
"What's that?" the Dragon was obliged to ask, out of politeness, though
I don't think he cared much.
"The fact is," returned Mr. Burden (a most appropriate name, according
to my point of view), "it's rather a queer one, or might seem so to you,
and I've promised the mater I won't talk of it unless I do adopt it. And
I'm over here qualifying, now."
It was easy to see that he hoped he'd excited our curiosity; and he must
have been disappointed in Sir Lionel's half-hearted "Indeed?" As for me,
I tried to make my eyes look like boiled gooseberries, an unenthusiastic
fruit, especially when cooked. I was delighted with the Dragon, though,
for not introducing him.
Having said "indeed," Sir Lionel added that we must be getting
on--luggage to see to; his valet a foreigner, and more bother than use.
I took my cue, and pattered along by my guardian's side, his tall form a
narrow yet impassable bulwark between me and Mr. Dick Burden. But Mr. D.
B. pattered too, refusing to be thrown off.
He asked Sir Lionel if he were staying on in Paris; and in the short
conversation that followed I picked up morsels of news which hadn't been
given me yet. It appeared that the Dragon's sister (who would suspect a
dragon of sisters?) had wired to Marseilles that she would meet him in
Paris, and he "expected to find her at an hotel." He didn't say what
hotel, so it was evident Mr. Dick Burden need not hope for an invitation
to call. Apparently our plans depended somewhat on her, but Sir Lionel
"thought we should get away next day at latest." There was nothing to
keep him in Paris, and he was in a hurry to reach England. I was glad to
hear that, for fear some more coincidences might happen, such as meeting
Madame de Maluet or one of the teachers holiday-making. Conscience does
make you a coward! I never noticed mine much before. I wish you could
take anti-conscience powders, as you do for neuralgia. Wouldn't they
sell like hot cakes?
At last Mr. Dick Burden had to go away without getting the introduction
he wanted, and Sir Lionel was either very absent-minded or else very
obstinate not to give it, I'm not sure which; but if I were a betting
character I should bet on the latter. I begin to see that his
dragon-ness may be expected to leak out in his attitude toward Woman as
a Sex. Already I've detected the most primitive, almost primaeval, ideas
in him, which probably he contracted in Bengal. Would you believe it, he
insisted on my putting on a veil to travel with?--but I haven't come to
that part yet.
As for Mr. Burden, as I said, he disappeared from our view; but I doubt
if we disappeared from his. You may think this is conceited in me, but,
as he took off his Panama in saying good-bye, he contrived to peer at me
round an unfortified corner of the Dragon, and the look he flung me said
more plainly than words: "This is all right, but I'm hanged if I don't
see it through," or something even more emphatic to that effect.
Sir Lionel was surprised when he saw my luggage, which we picked up when
he'd claimed his own.
"I thought young ladies never went anywhere without a dozen boxes," said
he.
"Oh, mamma and I travelled half over Europe with only one trunk and two
bags between us," I blurted out, before I stopped to think. Then I
wished the floor would yawn and swallow me up.
He did stare!--and his eyes are dreadfully piercing when he stares. They
are very nice-looking gray ones; but I can tell you they felt like
hatpins.
"I should have thought you were too young in those days to know anything
about luggage," said he.
That gave me a straw to clutch. "Madame de Maluet has told me a great
deal." (So she has, about one thing or another; mostly my own faults.)
"Oh, I see," he said. It must have seemed funny to him, my saying that
about the trunks, as Ellaline's mother died when E. was four.
He hadn't much luggage, either; no golf clubs, or battle-axes, or
whatever you play about with in Bengal when you aren't terrorizing the
natives. He sent the brown servant off in one cab with our things, and
put me in another, into which he also mounted. It did seem funny driving
off with him, for when I came to think of it, I was never alone with a
man before; but he was gawkier about it than I was. Not exactly shy; I
hardly know how to express it, but he couldn't help showing that he was
out of his element.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, he'd shaken hands with the Mock Dragon, and
shunted him off just as ruthlessly as he did the boy. "See you in
London, sooner or later," said he. As if anyone could want to see such a
disagreeable old thing! Yet, perhaps, if I but knew, the Mock Dragon's
character may be the nobler of the two. If I were to judge by
appearances, I should have liked the real Dragon's looks, and thought
from first sight that he was rather a brave, fine, high-principled
person, even unselfish. Whereas I know from all Ellaline has told me
that his qualities are quite the reverse of these.
We were going to the Grand Hotel, and driving there he pumped up a few
perfunctory sort of questions about school, the way grown-up people who
don't understand children talk to little girls. You know: "Do you like
your lessons? What do you do on holidays? What is your middle name?"
sort of thing. I was afraid I should laugh, so I asked him questions
instead; and all the time he seemed to be studying me in a puzzled,
surprised way, as if I were a duck that had just stepped out of a
chicken egg, or a goblin in a Nonconformist home. (If he keeps on doing
this, I shall _have_ to find out what he means by it, or _burst_.)
I asked him about his sister, as I thought Bengal might be a sore
subject, and he appeared to think that I already knew something of her.
If Ellaline does know, she forgot to tell me; and I hope other things
like that won't be continually cropping up, or my nerves won't stand it.
_I_ shall take to throwing spoons and tea-cups.
He reminded me of her name being Mrs. Norton, and that she's a widow. He
hadn't expected her to come over, he said, and he was surprised to get
her telegram, but no doubt he'd find out that she'd a pretty good
reason. And it was nothing to be astonished at, her not meeting him at
the Gare de Lyon, for she invariably missed people when she went to
railway stations. It had been a characteristic of hers since youth. When
they were both young they were often in Paris together, for they had
French cousins (Ellaline's mother's people, I suppose), and then they
stopped at the Grand Hotel. He hadn't been there, though, he added, for
nearly twenty years; and had been out of England, without coming back,
for fifteen. That made him seem old, talking of what happened twenty
years ago--almost my whole life. Yet he doesn't look more than
thirty-five at most. I wonder does the climate of Bengal preserve
people, like flies in amber? Perhaps he's really sixty, and has this
unnatural appearance of youth.
"Does Mrs. Norton know about--me?" I asked.
"Why; of course she does," said he. "I wrote her she must come and live
with me when I found I'd got to have----" He shut up like a clam, on
that, and looked so horribly ashamed of himself that I burst out
laughing.
"Please don't mind," said I. "I know I'm an incubus, but I'll try to be
as little trouble as possible."
"You're _not_ an incubus," he contradicted me, almost indignantly.
"You're entirely different from what I thought you would be."
"Oh, then you thought I _would_ be an incubus?" I couldn't resist the
temptation of retorting. Maybe it was cruel, but there's no society for
the prevention of cruelty to dragons, so it can't be considered wrong in
humane circles.
"Not at all. But I--I don't know much about women, especially girls,"
said he. "And I told you I thought of you as a child."
"I hope you haven't gone to the trouble of engaging a nurse for me?" I