About this book

The Gay Adventure: A Romance

Richard Bird

wringing her hands in the carriage. I seize the opportunity, spring forward and check the maddened steed, escort the fainting lady home in a cab, and then--ah! Boundless Possibilities." He smiled, lighted a cigarette and pursued his idle fancy. "She must be, of course, the sole heiress of a millionaire. In his gratitude he would wish to reward me. But seeing that I am no vulgar fee-snatcher he would ask me to stay and dine. Over the walnuts and the port (how long is it since I drank good port?) he would learn my story, and with unusual delicacy say, 'Well, some day I hope I shall be able to help you to a job.' I leave his house, warm, full-fed, hopeful. The next morning he sends his car round, and I am whirled to his palatial city office. I enter--the great man is up to his knees in documents dictating to a staff of typewriters and gramophones. He spares me three minutes. 'Good morning, Mr. Mortimer. I find I need a secretary--salary a thousand a year. Oh! a bagatelle, I know, but you would have opportunities. Politics, perhaps. Anyhow, a beginning. Care to connect?' I accept with diffidence. 'Good. Take your coat off. Next room you'll find ...' I am a made man. Then the daughter--I had forgotten her, dear thing!--already touched by my heroism, might look favorably upon me; and who knows----?" At this point his musings were broken by confused shoutings and whistles. Looking up, Lionel saw with amused surprise that for once fate was playing into his hands; his dreams were coming true. An open brougham, drawn by a terrified horse, was approaching at an appalling speed. The coachman, crazed with fear, was standing up, tugging vainly at the reins, white, and shouting. In the brougham, pallid but calm, sat a girl of about twenty-three. Her lips were slightly parted, but no sound came from between them; courage held her erect, motionless and silent. The traffic divided before the swaying brougham like waves before a cutwater. When it was fifty yards distant the coachman lost all control of himself and with a scream of fear leaped from the box. He came down On his feet, staggered against a portly merchant--who went over like a ninepin--and lurched heavily on to a policeman preparing to make a dash for the horse's head. The constable fell with the man, and the pair, hero and craven, rolled comfortably in the kennel, clasped in each other's arms. Lionel, thus favored by destiny, fitted his hat more firmly to his head and prepared to make his fortune. In his early youth he had read that the best method of stopping a runaway is to run in the same direction. Remembering this, he set off at full speed; and by the time the horse was level with his shoulder he was running almost as fast. With a judicious leap he sprang at the reins, clutched them, stumbled, recovered and still ran. He was strong of arm and at least twelve stones in weight. The horse, already half-repentant of his lapse, was not inclined to support so heavy a burden at his mouth. A few yards more and the heroic part of the episode was over. Several officious touts were holding the horse's head, and another policeman was preparing to make notes. Lionel, panting from the unusual exertion, turned to look after the lady. She, who had behaved with such admirable composure while danger was imminent, now that it was over, lay in a faint. As he raised her in his arms he noticed with satisfaction that she was certainly beautiful and her clothes expensive and tasteful. "Ha! ha!" he thought whimsically, "a secretaryship! Governor of a Crown Colony at least! I must take a flat to-morrow!" He bore her into a chemist's shop that stood conveniently near, and placed her in a chair. While the chemist was applying sal volatile in the genteelest manner, Lionel was wondering whom he should ask to support him at St. George's. It was not long before the lady recovered her senses, and she opened her eyes with a ravishing sigh. She was naturally bewildered, and Lionel--partly because he wished to reassure her, partly because she was very pretty--knelt and took her hand. "There is no need for alarm," he said persuasively, with the purring note that some women find sympathetic. "You fainted; that is all." She gave the ghost of a shudder: "I fainted?" "Yes. The horse, ran away, but there was no accident." "The coachman--is he hurt?" This thought for another in the midst of her own recovery flushed Lionel's being like a draught of wine. Hitherto she had been merely a pretty aristocrat and (apparently) a delightful girl. Now she was more--a divine human whom he longed to kiss, caress and call "You darling!" "No," he said. "He fell softly. Upon a constable, I believe." She was nearly herself again, and gave a little laugh. "Let us hope he was a fat one," she said. And then, after a pause: "Who stopped the horse?" "Oh, I was lucky enough to do that," he replied with an assumed jauntiness, wishing he could feel it was an every-day business. "It was not hard." "Others appeared to think differently," she replied with a grave admiration that pleased him. "Then, madam, they can not have seen you," he smiled. Really, the affair was being conducted on correct lines. She mused for a moment, chin in hand. "... I think," she said presently, "you must be rather an unusual man." Lionel tried to look as if he disagreed. "Yes, I think so.... And I suppose I owe you my life.... I wonder what reward...." It must have been the devil that prompted Lionel to say, "One pound, three and sevenpence"; but by an effort he choked back the horrible words, and stammered that he was already repaid. "No," she demurred, smiling, searching him with her eyes: "that is hardly fair. I wonder if you would like ..." She glanced round. The chemist's back was turned: he was groping for some drug upon the shelves. Lionel was still upon one knee, his face upturned, his eyes drawn as by a magnet. She leaned toward him; her face came closer and closer yet, in her eyes a world of gratitude and fun. Her hair almost brushed his cheek, and he shivered. "I wonder if----" At that moment the chemist turned, and she finished the sentence persuasively, "--if you could get me a cab? I dare not trust my horse again to-day." Lionel rose stiffly. "Do you prefer," he asked, fixing the unhappy and bewildered chemist with a glare of anger, "a hansom or a taxi?" "A taxi, please." Lionel withdrew. He ordered the coachman, dusty and degraded, to drive home. The policeman, who had salved the discomfiture of his over-throw by hectoring the crowd and cuffing the nearest urchins, obligingly blew his whistle. A minute later a taxi came up. CHAPTER II BEHIND THE SCENES It was one of the great moments in Lionel's life when he handed her into the prosaic vehicle. From the chemist's shop to the cab was only a few feet, but for that paltry space the young man felt as a king must feel when he makes a royal progress abroad. There was no cheering from the crowd that had gathered, hoping for blood, or at least bandages; but the whispers ("That's him! That's him! Torfs! He's all right!" etc.) thrilled him with a sense of self-importance to which he had long been a stranger. He found it a little difficult to refrain from raising his hat and bowing his thanks to the kindly creatures. As for the lady, she walked on air and seemed unconscious of an audience. The cab was reached all too soon. Lionel waved aside a cloud of would-be helpers, and with a sigh of misery opened the door. The lady got in; but just as he was on the point of shutting himself off from every hope, she leaned forward. "There is room for two!" she breathed. It was a fine thing for him that his hand was upon the door, for the invitation shook him as the wind the rushes. The crowd, the pavement, even the gross material substance of the constable, reeled before him. He heard but dimly the voice of the chauffeur asking whither he was to drive. "To Heaven!" he muttered, and then recklessly, "Or hell, if you like!" The chauffeur looked anxiously at him, fearing he had suffered mentally from his exertions. Lionel caught the suspicion in his eye and steadied himself. "I beg your pardon," he said brokenly; "I was repeating some poetry of my childhood--_Paradise Lost_--Milton, you know. Can't imagine what put it in my head. Drive round and round the park." "Which park?" asked the man gruffly. "The farthest and biggest," said Lionel, and clambered in. They drove for several minutes without a word being spoken. Lionel was so amazed by the aptness and desirability of the adventure that he could not utter a word. He could only think, "What a perfectly topping girl! How will it end? What shall I do--say--think? She is the most charming creature I have met; she invites a kiss--might I?... Be careful, Lionel! Your fortune is at stake! The secretaryship! Mrs. Barker and her rent! A false step would ruin all! Besides, she is such a dear ..." These and a hundred other fancies flickered through his brain. The strange lady was silent, too. It may have been that she felt she had been a little imprudent in her invitation to the cavalier, hero though he was. Leaning back against the cushion, she gazed pensively out of the window at the streets and traffic, lost in thought. Her companion stared fixedly at the stolid back of the chauffeur: that, at least, was real and a corrective. It was the lady who spoke first, and with a sympathetic engaging accent, nicely calculated to stir the most sluggish blood. "Well?" she said. Lionel awoke from his trance and turned. "Ah!" he murmured, and seized her hand. He raised it to his lips and kissed it with a passionate reverence. "Ah!" he said again, and "Ah!" punctuating the exclamations with tender salutes. "You should not do that," reproved the lady, though her voice betrayed neither astonishment nor indignation. "It is foolish." She laughed musically. "Foolish!" echoed Lionel with a fine contempt. "Madam, it is anything but that. If this be foolishness, then youth and joy and a careless heart are folly, and woman is folly----" "I thought that men were agreed upon that," she said. "Cynics and pedagogues may hold the heresy," admitted Lionel, "but not the happy, the young and the wise." "Your youth and happiness are patent," she retorted, "but how am I to be sure of your wisdom?" He laughed. "If you accept my youth and gaiety, I have good hopes of convincing you of that." She withdrew her hand from his ardent clasp, as if he had been too presumptuous, or at least premature. Lionel cursed himself for a coxcomb and hastened to make his peace. "You are not angry?" he asked anxiously. "I have not offended you----?" "No," she said, after an infinitesimal pause. "I am ... not ... angry." There was a query in her tone that restored his self-confidence, a quality of which he had usually good store. With a resolute movement he took her in his arms. Possibly she was too amazed to protest; certainly at first she made not the least resistence to the onset. It was not until his lips touched hers that she gave a little cry as of shame. "No, no!" she pleaded. "You must not ... my husband ..." Lionel was a man of the world, but as chance would have it, he was a man of honor, too. He dropped the lady like a hot coal at the appalling word, and sat back rigid in his own corner of the cab. His companion, mastered by emotion, covered her face with her hands. Presently she peeped between her fingers and repeated his words, almost his accent. "You are ... not ... angry?" "I am never angry with a woman," he replied; but the lie was obvious. She laid a soft hand upon his arm. "You have not told me your name yet," she murmured. "I must always