CHAPTER XIV
CREAM AND COMPLIMENTS
IN a few minutes we were sitting opposite to each other at a prettytable in the upper room. We were close to the window and could look downon the Bond Street crowd of people and cars. In front of us was thedaintiest little tea that I had ever seen. This young man is, of course,accustomed to ordering the sort of tea that women like?
"And this is the second time that you have poured out tea for me, MissLovelace!" remarked the Honourable Jim Burke, as he took the cup from myhand. "Admirable little hostess that you are, remembering not to ask mewhether I take sugar; storing up in your mind that what I like is acupful of sugar with a little tea to moisten it!"
This was quite true.
I felt myself blush as I sat there. Then I glared at him over the plateof delicious cakes. The young man smiled; a nice smile, that one mustallow.
"You look like a little angry black pigeon now. You've just themovements of a pigeon ready to peck at some one, and the plumage," hesaid, with a critical blue eye on my close-fitting black jacket. "All itlacks is just a touch of bright coral-red somewhere. A chain, now; acharm on the bangle; a flower. It's to you I ought to have sent thosecarnations, instead of to your----Do you call her your mistress, thatother girl? That one with the voice? Mad idea, the whole arrangement,isn't it? Just think it over for a moment, and tell me yourself. Don'tyou think it's preposterous?"
"I--er----"
I didn't know what to say. I bit into one of the little cakes thatseemed all chocolate and solidity outside. Inside it was all cream andsoft-heartedness and sherry flavouring, and it melted over on to thecrisp cloth.
"There, now, look what a mess you're making," commented the youngIrishman with the undeservedly pleasant voice. "Try one of these almondyfellows that you can see what you're doing with. To return to you andyour masquerade as Miss Million's maid----"
"It is not a masquerade," I explained with dignity. "I don't know whatyou mean by your--I am in Miss Million's service. I am her maid!"
"Have some strawberries and cream. Really fine strawberries, these,"interpolated the Honourable Jim. "What was I saying--you her maid?Wouldn't it be just as sensible if I myself were to go and get myselftaken on as valet by that other young fellow that was sitting there attea in her rooms yesterday--the bank manager, or whatever he was?Curious idea to have a deaf-and-dumb chap as a manager."
Here I really had to bite my lips not to laugh again. Certainly poor Mr.Brace had descended, like Mr. Toots, into a well of silence for thewhole of that afternoon. I daresay he thought the more.
"When I heard at the Cecil that all those boxes and things belonged tothe very young lady with her maid, naturally enough I thought I knewwhich of the two was the mistress," pursued the Honourable Jim in a sortof spoken reverie, eating strawberries and cream with the gusto of aschoolgirl. "Then when I came up and saw the wrong one waiting on theother, and looking like a picture in her apron----"
"Please don't say those things to me," I interrupted haughtily.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't like it."
"It's a queer disposition the Lovelace women must be of, then. Differentfrom the others. To take offence? To shy at the sound of a man's voicesaying how sweet they look in something they've got new to wear? I willremember that," said Mr. Burke, still in that tone of reverie. Withevery word he spoke I longed more ardently to feel very angry with thisyoung man. Yet every word seemed to make genuine anger more impossible.Sitting there over his strawberries and cream, he looked like some huge,irresponsible, and quite likeable boy. I had to listen to him. He wenton: "Then when I saw you as the maid, I thought you'd just changedplaces for a joke. I made sure 'twas you that were Miss Million."
"What?" I cried.
For now I really was angry.
It was the same kind of hot, unreasonable, snobbish anger that surgedall over me when Million (my mistress) began to lose her habit of saying"Miss," and of speaking to me as if I'd come from some better world.Utterly foolish and useless anger, in the circumstances. Still, there itwas. I flushed with indignation. I looked straight at the Honourable JimBurke as I said furiously: "Then you really took me--me!--for the nieceof that dreadful old--of that old man in Chicago?"
"I did. But, remember," said Mr. Burke, "I'd never set eyes on that oldman."
"Ah! You admit that, then," I said triumphantly and accusingly, "inspite of all that long story to Miss Million. You admit yourself that itwas all a make-up! What do you suppose Miss Million will say to that?"
The young fortune-hunter looked at me with perfect calm and said: "Who'sto tell her that I admitted I'd never seen her old uncle?"
"To tell her? Why!" I took up. "Her maid! Supposing I go and tellher----"
"Ah, but don't you see? I'm not supposing any such thing," said Mr.Burke. "You'll never tell, Miss Lovelace."
"How d'you know?"
"I know," he said. "Don't I know that you'd never sneak?"
And, of course, this was so true. Equally, of course, I was pleased andannoyed with him at the same time for knowing it. I frowned and staredaway down Bond Street. Then I turned to him again and said: "You said tome yesterday, 'What is your game?'"
"So I did. But now that I've found out you're not the heiress herself, Iknow what your game is."
"What?"
"The same as mine," declared this amazing young fortune-hunter, verysimply. "Neither of us has a penny. So we both 'go where money is.'Isn't that it, now?"
"No, no!" I said hotly. "You are hatching up an introduction to MissMillion, deceiving her, laughing at her, plotting against her, I expect.I'm just an ordinary lady's-maid to her, earning my wages."
"By the powers, they'll take some earning before you're done,"prophesied the young Irishman, laughing, "mark my words. You'll haveyour work cut out for you, minding that child let loose with its handsfull of fireworks. I feel for you, you poor little girl. I do, indeed."
"Really. You--you don't behave as if you did. People like you won't makemy 'work' any easier," I told him severely. "You know you are simplyturning Miss Million's head, Mr. Burke."
"Oh, you wrong me there," he said solemnly.
"I don't wrong you at all. I see through you perfectly," I said. And Idid. His mouth might be perfectly grave, but blue imps were dancing inhis eyes. "You are flattering and dazzling poor Mi--my mistress, justbecause she has never met any one like you before!"
"Ah! You've met so many of us unprincipled men of the world!" sighed Mr.Burke. "I daren't hope to impose on your experience, Miss Lovelace.(We'll have two lemon water ices, please"--to the waitress.)
"No, but you are imposing on her," I scolded him, "with your--yourstories of knowing her uncle, and all that. And now you're----"
"Well, what are my other crimes?"
I took breath and said: "You're asking her out for drives in that coachof yours----"
"Would to Heaven it were my coach," sighed Lord Ballyneck's youngestson. "It belongs to my good pal Leo Rosencranz, that turn-out! I ammerely----"
"What I want to know is," I broke in very severely, "where is all thisgoing to lead to?"
He took the wafer off his ice before replying. Then he said very mildly:"Brighton, I thought."
Isn't an Irishman the most hopeless sort of person to whom to try totalk sense? Particularly angry sense!
"I don't mean the coach-drive," I said crossly. "You knew that, Mr.Burke. I mean your acquaintance with my employer. Where is that going tolead to?"
"I hope it's going to lead to mutual benefits," announced the HonourableJim briskly. "Now, since you're asking me my intentions like this, I'lltell them to you. I've never before had the knife laid to my throat likethis, and by a bit of a chestnut-haired girl, too! Well, I intend to seea good deal of Miss Million. I shall introduce to her a lot of peoplewho'll be useful, one way and another. Haven't I sent two friends ofmine to call on her this afternoon?"
"Have you?" I
said.
So that was the reason Million insisted on my taking the afternoon off!She didn't intend me to see his friends! I wondered who they were.
Mr. Burke went on: "Between ourselves, I intend to be a sort of Cook'sguide through life to your young friend--your employer, Miss Million. Ayoung woman in her position simply can't do without some philanthropistto show her the ropes. Perhaps she began by thinking you might be ableto do that, Miss--Smith?" he laughed softly. He said: "But I shall soonhave her turning to me for guidance as naturally as a needle turns tothe north. I tell you I'm the very man to help a forlorn orphan whodoesn't know what to do with a fortune. Money, by Ishtar! How well Iknow where to take it! Pity I never have a stiver of my own to do itwith!"
"You haven't?" I said.
"Child, I'm a pauper," he replied. "The descendant of Irish kings; needI say more? There's not a page-boy at the Cecil who hasn't more ordinarycomforts in his home than I have. My father's the poorest peer inIreland. My brother's the poorest eldest son and I--I tell you I can'tafford to spend a week at Ballyneck; the damp in the rooms would ruin myclothes; the sound of the rats rompin' up and down the tapestry woulddestroy my high spirits; and then where'd I be?"
I looked at him. He, too, then, was of the nouveaux-pauvres, the classthat is sinking down, down under the scrambling, upward-climbing feet ofthe successful. But he took the situation in a different spirit from theway in which my Aunt Anastasia took it. He frankly made what he couldout of it. He hoisted the Jolly Roger and became a pirate on the veryseas that had engulfed the old order.
Disgraceful of him.... One ought not to wish to listen to what he had tosay.
"Champagne tastes on a beer income; that's bad. But here's thislittle--this little Million girl with a champagne income and no tastesat all yet. I shall be worth half her income to her in consequence," heannounced. "I shall be able to give her priceless tips. Advice, youknow, about--oh, where to buy all the things she'll want. The cars. Thewines and cigars. (Even a grown-up woman isn't often to be trusted aboutthose.) The country house she'll have to take. What about LovelaceCourt, Miss Lovelace? Care to have her there, in case the people whohave got it want to turn out? I've no doubt I could wangle that for you,if you liked."
I said, feeling bewildered, and flurried, and amused all at once: "Whatis 'wangle'?"
The Honourable Jim Burke laughed aloud as he devoured his lemon waterice.
"You'll know the meaning of that mystic verb before you have known mevery long," he said. "It's the way I make my living."
I looked at him, sitting there so debonair and showy in his expensiveraiment, talking so cynically in that golden voice. So typically one of"our" world, as Aunt Anastasia prophetically calls it; yet so ready torub shoulders with every other kind of world that there may be--Jews,theatrical people, hotel porters, pork-butchers, heiresses!
I asked, rather inquisitively: "Make your living how? What do you do?"
"People, mostly," said the Honourable Jim with a cheery grin.
No; there's no getting any truth or any sense out of a man like that.
Just before we rose from the tea-table I said to him: "And the end of itall? I suppose you'll marry--I suppose you'll get Miss Million to marryyou!"
"Marry?" said Mr. Burke with a little quick movement of his broad chestand shoulders. An odd movement! It seemed mixed up of a start, ashudder, and a shaking aside of something. "Marry? A woman with a voicelike that? And hands like that?"
This touched my professional pride as manicurist and lady's-maid. I toldhim: "Her hands are much better since I've been looking after them!"
"They must have been pretty rough-hewn," said Mr. Burke, candidly,"before!"
"Of course, they were in a horrid state," I said unguardedly. "But yourswould be red and rough if you'd had to scrub and to wash up and toblack-lead fireplaces----"
"What? Had the little Million been doing all that before she came intoUncle's money?" cried the Honourable Jim, with delighted interestbeaming all over his face. "Truth is stranger than cinema films! Tell meon, now; where was this Dollar Princess in service?"
"With m----" I began. Then I shut my lips with a snap. What washappening? This young man that I had meant to cross-examine was simply"pumping" me! Not only that, but I was very nearly getting to the pointof being ready to tell him anything he asked. How had this come about?Anyhow, it must not be. I put on a very forbidding look and said: "Ishall not tell you where Miss Million was."
"Haven't ye told me? She was with you or your relatives. If that isn'tthe grandest joke!" chuckled this unsuppressable young man. "Don'tattempt to deny it, for I see it all now. Isn't it the finest bit oflight opera? Isn't it better than me wildest dreams? And how did sheshape, the heiress? What sort of a character would you give her? Was shean early riser--honest, obliging? Could she wait at table? And is it abit of her own she's getting back now, setting you to hand round thecups?" He laughed aloud. "Can't I see it all now--the pride of her? Shethat was waiting on you, she's got you to skivvy for her now! Oh, Iwouldn't have missed this Drama of the Domestic Servant Problem! Don'thope to keep me out of the stalls, Miss Lovelace, after this! It's inthe front row I shall be in future for every performance!"
With this alarming threat he finished his ice and laughed once more,joyously. While I was debating what to say, he took up the conversationagain.
"Tell me, are you going to get Miss Million's hands to look exactly likeyours?" he asked, fastening his eyes on my fingers. I clenched my fistsand hid them away under the table. "Ah, but I noticed them at once. Andyour voice? Are you going to teach her to speak exactly as you do?Because, when that happens----" He paused (at last).
"Well?" I said, beginning to put on my new gloves. "When that happens,what?"
"Why, then I shall certainly beg her to marry me," declared theIrishman. "Faith, I'll go down on my knees to the girl then."
"Not until then?" I suggested. I was really anxious to get through thisbaffling young man's nonsense. I wanted to find out what he really meantto do about all this.
But he only shook his head with that mock-solemn air. He only said:"Child, who knows what's going to happen to any of us, and when?"
Half the way back to the Cecil (Mr. Burke had hailed a taxi for me andhad then got into it with me) I was wondering what I am to say to mymistress, Miss Million, about the happenings of my afternoon out. How amI to break it to her that I spent nearly the whole of it in the societyof a young man against whom I have been warning her--Million--ever sincehe first sent in his card?
"Does your Miss Million allow flowers?" Mr. Burke said cheerfully as wewhizzed down the Haymarket. "To you, I mean?"
It was an outrageous thing to say. But in that voice it somehow didn'tsound outrageous, or even disrespectful. The voice of the Celt, whetherIrish, Highland-Scottish, or Welsh, does always seem to have the softpedal down on it. And it's a most unfair advantage, that voice, for anyman to possess.
I said hastily: "Really, I don't think you need speak to me as if I werea maid on her afternoon----"
Here I remembered that this was exactly what I was. And again I wasforced into reluctant laughter.
"You've no business to be taking the job on at all," said the young manat my side in the taxi, quite gravely this time. "Was there nothing elseyou could do, Miss Lovelace?"
"No; nothing."
"What about woman's true sphere? You ought to get married."
"Very easy to say that, for a man," I said. "How could I get married?"
Really earnestly he replied: "Have you tried?"
"No! Of course not!"
"You should," he said. He looked down at me in a curious, kindly way. Hesaid: "I've wangled things harder than that both for myself and myfriends. Men like a wife that can wear diamonds as if they belonged toher; a wife that can talk the same language as some of their bestclients. Well! Here's a charming young girl, with looks, breeding, and afine old name. Can do!" he brought his flat hand down on the top of hisebony cane, and added, "Have y
ou a hatred of foreigners?"
"Foreigners?" I repeated, rather breathless again over the suddenconversational antics of a young man who can't be serious for twoseconds together. "Foreigners? What for?"
"Why, for a husband! Supposing now that I were to introduce to you afellow I knew, a fellow with 'a heart of gold' and pretty welleverything else in metal to match it, like all these German Jews----"
I gasped: "You think I ought to marry a German Jew?"
"That's just the merest idea of mine. Startled you, did it? We'lldiscuss it later, you and I. But it'll take time. Lots of time--and, byJove! There isn't any too much of that now," he exclaimed, glancing athis wrist-watch as we passed the lions of Trafalgar Square, "if I'm toget back to your--to our Miss Million----"
"Is she expecting you," I asked rather sharply, "again?"
"She is not. But here are these two friends of mine calling on her; andI'm bound to put in an appearance before they leave. Rather so! I'm notturning them loose on any new heiresses, without keeping my eye on whatthey're up to," explained the Honourable James Burke with his usualbland frankness. "So here I stop the taxi."
He got out. I saw him feel in all his pockets, and at last he took outhalf a sovereign. (The last, I daresay.)
Then he turned to me. "I'll give you three minutes' start, child, to getback to the hotel and into that cap and apron of yours. One moreword.... Go through the lounge, and you'll see the animals feeding. Goon, man"--to the taxi driver: "The Hotel Cecil; fly!"