CHAPTER IX.
SNOB TO THE RESCUE.
THE Countess of Grasmere, for such was the style and designation of Merceron's new acquaintance, had slept with extreme soundness after the Marchioness's ball. It was late in the morning when she awoke.
In the deliciously comfortable half-hour before rising, the recent event, and more especially her own part in it, returned, echo of a pleasurable comedy. She smiled over each distant scene; never had fairy-tale and romance, paradoxically near and removed as they were, seemed so actual. This dance was one of those rare festivities that stand apart from the ruck. The figure of her foremost partner led this train. He had, indeed, been delightful: and she set to wondering whether she would ever see him again; whether he would really call—was it not that very afternoon that he was to reappear? They had behaved like a pair of reckless children—how young they had been! Perhaps he would call—but the next day was so different to far-away balconies! And the Countess sighed. After all, it was but charming fairy-tale; and the book was closed, the story ended.
Lady Grasmere sent her maid to find Mrs. Hodgson; and when that lady appeared, she was told to sit down on the bed and listen.
Mrs. Hodgson was middle-aged and benevolent, her eyes twinkled humorously and her mouth curved merrily upwards; half guest, half companion, she had spent that season with the Countess at the house in Albert Gate.
Her ladyship told of last night, and Mrs. Hodgson smiled. Her ladyship only told half.
"Shocking," said Mrs. Hodgson, "I'm surprised at you!" She was laughing.
"And if he should call?" asked the Countess.
"My dear!"
"I wish he would."
"Gertrude!"
"I'm sure you would like him."
"So am I," said Mrs. Hodgson. "But these young men," and she wagged her head warningly, "one never can tell."
"You'd better not!" laughed the Countess.
"I wonder what he must think of you!" exclaimed Mrs. Hodgson.
"I know."
"So do I," said Mrs. Hodgson, patting the Countess' head.
"He said he loved me," said the Countess.
"Gertrude, how can you?"
"He didn't—but I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry about?" asked Mrs. Hodgson.
"It's all over," said the Countess. It really did seem a pity that she should see no more of this masterful unknown quantity whose exuberant vitality had given her some of the keenest moments of that fast-dying season. "Why couldn't I have met him in the ordinary way?" she asked petulantly.
"It wouldn't have been half such fun," said Mrs. Hodgson, her eyes twinkling more than ever.
"Not a quarter," said the Countess.
"Is this all you wanted me for?" asked Mrs. Hodgson, rising. Her voice betokened deep disappointment.
"Isn't it plenty?" asked the Countess. "You're going?"
"I am, madam; your frivolity is—most charming," and Mrs. Hodgson swept out, amid a peal of laughter from the bed.
The Countess remained, her morning collation well within reach. She was still thinking of Harvey. He interested her. The audacity of his uninvited presence at the Stoke ball, one of the most exclusive functions of the year, delighted her—and he had carried his intrusion off so well!
He was unmistakably a gentleman, his good looks and bearing beyond question. "He wasn't rude once—and he could have been," she reflected. He had clearly embarked on his adventure for adventure's sake. Would she ever see him again? He might find her out; but then she was evidently as strange to him as he to her, and he had asked no questions. There were no clues, absolutely none. Even his face, she pondered, was new to her, and by degrees one really got to know almost every face in town.
"Etiquette is very silly—I wish I had asked him to call," said the Countess, as she nibbled her luncheon.
"So do I," replied Mrs. Hodgson.
"One doesn't do these things," replied the Countess.
"I should hope not," said Mrs. Hodgson. After a sufficient pause she added, "He might have asked permission.'
"That's all he did ask," sighed the Countess.
"Then he will come," asserted Mrs. Hodgson.
"But he knows nothing—and he's a perfect innocent."
"The more reason.'*
"Adam on his honeymoon must have behaved like this man," said Lady Grasmere.
"What a notion!" Mrs. Hodgson then turned to the brooding sky. "I told Mrs. Pretty I'd go with her to that new palmist everybody's talking about, and it's going to rain."
"So you 're going out?"
"To have my fortune told."
"If he calls shall I receive him?"
"You may, if you promise"
"Promise?"
"To keep him till I come back," said Mrs. Hodgson.
"I 'll only allow you one look," said the Countess.
After lunch Mrs. Hodgson busied herself with the manufacture of a corduroy waistcoat, a problem in silk and wool and paper, whose solution was to keep Mr. Hodgson's chest warm during subsequent winters. The Countess alternately answered her letters and looked out of the window at the rain.
"I wish it wouldn't," protested Mrs. Hodgson. At four o'clock came lightning and thunder. "I can't go out in this weather," she added.
The Countess went to her room. It grew so dark that Mrs. Hodgson had to lay the waist-coat aside.
"Gertrude seems a trifle disordered," she remarked to the world at large. "But Gertrude has very good taste—it's the same as mine."
Meanwhile, Merceron was driving back to his club, arranging his plan of attack as the cab covered the intervening ground. Arrived, he casually inquired of the porter whether Carter-Page had left.
The man's "No, sir," was worth bank-notes.
With the same assumption of leisure Harvey proceeded to search the building. He found Carter-Page in the billiard-room, cue in hand.
This time it was Harvey who nodded and took a seat.
"Rather a good stroke that," he observed critically, and lit a cigarette.
"Not bad, assented Carter-Page, figuring out a cannon.
"Why didn't you play at the red and go in?" asked Harvey, greatly interested, as the cannon failed.
"I'm not specially good at long shots;" and Carter-Page stood aside and watched his opponent.
"Neat," said Harvey, as the latter went in off the red.
"Have a drink?" said Carter-Page.
"Yes—I'm a bit cheap, was dancing half the night," remarked Harvey—his first move in this other game of pump.
"Stoke House?" inquired Carter-Page. "I 'll trouble you for the 'rest.'"
Harvey handed it to him. "I 'll trouble you for the rest—Stoke House—that's one to me!" was his inward cry.
"Thirty-four—forty-five," said Carter-Page coming out of play.
"It was rather fun—masks and dominos, you know. But you were there too, I suppose?"
"No"
"You 're not a dancing man?" Harvey agreeably suggested.
"Dashed poor leave that!" and Carter-Page moved away and pocketed the red. "Hard lines!" from Harvey, as he almost cannoned. The white fluked in. Carter-Page continued. The break yielded fifteen—and all the while Harvey looked on with brow unclouded.
"Rather a run that," he said, as Carter-Page lowered his cue.
Now the other man scored.
A servant brought Harvey a whisky-and-soda, which he was obliged to taste.
"Don't care for dances?" he enquired, as he set the glass down again.
"Oh! yes, I do. I don't know the Stokes, though. Bonner, do you remember him?"
"Bonner of New?" asked Harvey.
"Yes. He was there—you were rather in luck," said Carter-Page with a grin.
"Forty-nine—sixty-two," said the enemy.
Harvey's heart was rising—he was nearer, much nearer.
Carter-Page pocketed and went in, brought off an easy cannon, another, and failed to go in off the red.
"Can't do anything when it's under the cushion," he declared.
"Hard lines," sympathised Harvey; "you weren't in luck if I was—don't quite see where mine comes in, though."
"Luck?" asked Carter-Page.
"You just mentioned the article."
"Oh, yes—Lady Grasmere,—you were rather making the pace."
Harvey was clinging to the name like grim death.
"An old friend," he remarked.
Carter-Page seemed impressed. He had to play in baulk, and missed.
"Have a cigarette?" said Harvey; "I'm just going over to the reading-room—may see you later on?"
"I 'll come up afterwards; the weather's much too beastly to do anything," said Carter-Page.
"Grasmere—he said Grasmere!" Harvey had rushed upstairs, had pulled down the big directory. "Law—Commercial—Court—Court, that 'll be it... 'Grasmere, Countess of,'" his finger was on the line, he had the direction. Soiled hat and dripping umbrella, what did they matter!
Ten mintes later his hansom drew up at the house in Albert Gate.
Before him stood a dainty red-brick mansion, freshly picked out with white and gay with well-filled window-boxes. He looked up, the sky was clearing; facing him was the equestrian statue of a recent general and the point of a wedge whose sides formed two important main roads.
A man opened to him. Was Lady Grasmere at home? The man would go and see. His name?
"Merceron."
"Mr. Mason?"
Harvey, palpitating, was shown Into a room, and waited.
Presently the man returned and deferentially took possession of Harvey's umbrella, then led the way up thickly-carpeted stairs to a charmingly furnished drawing-room.
A middle-aged lady received him. Had he come to the wrong house?
"Dreadful weather, Mr. Marsden." That man had evidently corrupted his name a second time.
"Very," assented Harvey. What did this mean, and where was he?
"Cats and dogs," said Mrs. Hodgson.
"Certainly," said Harvey, his perplexity increasing.
Light at last! The Countess had laughingly interposed. She entered, little changed from the woman of last night, was wearing blue instead of yellow.
"Mrs. Hodgson," said the Countess. Harvey bowed. "But she has to take a friend to get their fortunes told."
"Unfortunately," said Mrs. Hodgson.
"Can we spare her?" asked the Countess.
Harvey only smiled—the best thing he could have done.
"Nice face, nice smile; beware!" whispered Mrs. Hodgson at the door. The Countess closed it on her.
They were alone now, and Merceron was looking up at his companion in a rebound of happiness, almost doubting the evidence of his five senses. His eyes wandered from his hostess, roamed round the exquisite interior, to its hundred and one knick-knacks in silver and china and glass, its photographs of unknown faces, and the unfamiliar pictures on the walls; and he was glad.