The Smart Set/Volume 27/Issue 1/The Three Gamboliers

by Hulbert Footner

 

THE THREE GAMBOLIERS

By HULBERT FOOTNER

EDNA, Countess of Yetholme, spending the night in the Wigwam, a little hotel in Blackfoot supported by the English set, was wakened by a low, persistent knocking on her bedroom door; it was Parrott, her maid, clad in a kimono and very untidy about the head.

“There's a lady asking for you, my lady!” exclaimed Parrott, breathless with amazement.

“What time is it?” murmured the Countess, none too pleasantly; for she was of a comfortable habit and resented excitement in the middle of the night.

“Three o'clock, my lady,” said Parrott impressively.

“Good patience!” cried the Countess plaintively. “Who is it?”

“Never saw her before. Very well dressed and quiet-mannered, my lady. Has a person with her I think is her maid.”

“What on earth does she want?”

“Didn't tell me, my lady. Says she, 'Please tell the Countess I must see her for a moment on a matter of the most urgent importance—something that cannot wait until morning.'”

“Well, show her into my sitting-room and come back and help me,” said the Countess, curiosity getting the better of her love of ease.

With an ample jointure and no responsibilities the Countess Edna found life as a dowager of forty-two very agreeable. After twenty years of experience as the dutiful wife of a trying peer and the anxious mother of two dangerous girls, she had by the death of the former and the marriages of the latter lately found herself free to follow her own sweet will; and like other suddenly liberated persons, had immediately experienced the desire to see life. To the Countess “seeing life” meant a trip to Canada to visit her husband's brother on his great horse ranch west of the town of Blackfoot. Here, to tell the truth, she had been very much disappointed; there was not a single bucking bronco among the honorable Alfred Anway's stock—only blooded hackneys such as she saw every day in the Park at home; and the cowboys she had expected to see were scarcely to be distinguished from English grooms. As for her Canadian sister-in-law, instead of the breezy, unconventional Westerner she longed to meet, she found an exaggerated great lady whose airs got on the nerves of the honest Lady Edna. The other women of the district were no more amusing; they all copied her own manner and strove to entertain her with painful little imitations of the very functions she had fled from England to escape for a time.

Lady Edna consoled herself with three graceless youths, in whom she fancied she perceived something genuinely Western, to wit: her nephew, Lord Algernon Craucester, Algy's cousin, Baron Fabien de Maurillac, half English, half French, and the honorable Bill Trefusis, Algy's “partner.” Until the arrival of the Countess “the three gamboliers,” as they called themselves, had been outcasts from polite English society around Blackfoot. Between remittances Algy and Bill eked out a mysterious existence in a deplorable shack up Nose Creek way, while Fabien, who was of a more independent character, was for the time being driving a milk wagon about town with true aristocratic carelessness. On quarter days they joined forces, cashed their drafts and for a few days cut a wide swath in town, which more often than not ended in the Blackfoot lock-up. But Lady Edna knew nothing about this. She had a soft spot in her heart for boys, no doubt because she had longed in vain to have one of her own, so her blond, curly-headed nephew had no difficulty whatever in worming himself into her affections and he had promptly introduced his two friends.

Induced by Lady Edna's glowing letters home, or for other reasons, her brother, the old Marquis of Ommaney, Algy's father, had suddenly decided on a flying trip through western Canada and California, and he was to stop off at Blackfoot early the next morning. Algy, like many another remittance man, was, for his misdeeds, an exile from home, and the Countess was bent on effecting a reconciliation between father and son; hence her presence at the Wigwam. The transcontinental train, as everyone knows, reaches Blackfoot at half-past four in the morning—when it is on time; it had been arranged that the boys were to meet the Marquis at the train while the Countess was to have Algy and his father to breakfast with her.

In the meantime she had entertained the three remittance men at dinner at the Wigwam that night, and did not remember ever having enjoyed a dinner more. The gamboliers, who scarcely possessed a whole suit between them, in order to appear in evening dress had levied on the wardrobes of their friends, with a result decidedly picturesque; for Algy seemed to be submerged in his clothes, broad-shouldered Fabien was bursting out of his, and Bill, who had preserved a dress suit of his own through many vicissitudes, presented a sadly creased and moth-eaten exterior. But no sartorial defects could disturb their nonchalance; and the Countess could hardly decide which was the most entertaining—little Algy with his frank boyishness, handsome Fabien with his hawk nose, his crimson cheeks and his dark eyes blazing with animation, or dear old Bill, long, pallid and emaciated, whose pale blue eyes were always anxiously in pusuit of some lapsed joke, and who, without suspecting it, was apt to be the funniest of the trio. Algy and Fabien barely made the Countess's age between them; Bill was almost as old as she, but he retained that faded air of youth which may linger in younger sons—and actors, to almost any age.

All of the three gamboliers took the same naïvely arrogant tone toward the world, but the Countess who, kindly and tolerant as she was, was likewise an aristocrat of a long line, could hardly find it in her heart to blame them for that. It appeared from their talk that the raggeder they became, the more top-lofty their attitude to the common and prosperous townspeople. Not that Lady Edna was a fool either; she took their humorous and well-glossed stories of their own doings with several grains of salt, and had more than once found herself wondering what their lives were really like. She was to learn—from her mysterious early morning callers.

Clad in one of her complicated “loose things,” the Countess paused for an instant on the threshold of the door between her bedroom and sitting-room full of curiosity. The women had not seated themselves, but were both standing in the center of the room watching the ornate iron clock on the mantel. The principal figure, she saw, was that of a handsome woman slenderer than herself, who looked thirty-two and was probably thirty-eight; beyond that she could not place her. She was as much at ease in the Countess's sitting-room as Lady Edna herself, nor did she show any trace of the excitement to be expected in such an untimely caller. She had the fresh complexion which, if it is art, conceals art, and the guarded blue eye of many a woman Lady Edna had known in London; her mouth was good-humored and prone to a quiet smile; her manner as bland as the Countess's own could be. She wore a dark green street dress of a fit and style such as Lady Edna had not supposed ever penetrated to the Northwest, and a little hat at once modest and daring. In one of her irreproachably gloved hands she was carrying a shagreen bag of curious and expensive workmanship; and what the Countess marveled at most, in her ears she wore a pair of perfectly-matched pink pearls of a size and luster which would have made talk in London, not to say Blackfoot. In her perplexity the Countess shot a glance at the other woman. From her plain black dress she looked to be, as Parrott had said, a maid; yet she had uncommonly fine eyes, Lady Edna observed. They were honest brown eyes set wide apart in her head; just now the lids were swollen as if from weeping. If the mistress was at ease, the maid was plainly suppressing some strong emotion. Lady Edna wondered fleetingly why she should feel so drawn to a stranger of such a humble station.

As soon as the lady in green perceived the Countess she said in a pleasant but non-committal voice, “You won't ask me to apologize for disturbing you when you learn my errand. It's about your nephew.”

Lady Edna felt a decided misgiving.

“Lord Algy and his two friends,” said the lady in green deprecatingly, “are in jail.”

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the Countess, with a round-eyed display of astonishment. It was a characteristic of her ample style of utterance to pronounce the “y” sound short, like “e.”

“And as I understand he was to have met his father in an hour”—continued the lady in green.

“Why, the boy's whole future depends on this meeting!” said the Countess in distress. As the dreadful consequences forced themselves fully on her, her eyes became wider and wider. “Good heavens!—the Marquis! To find his son in jail—his name bandied about town—he'd never get over it! Something must be done at once!”

“That's why I came to you,” said the lady in green.

“Oh, the little wretch!” exclaimed poor Lady Edna. “Why did he have to choose tonight?”

“You shouldn't have given them champagne for dinner!” came with startling unexpectedness from the girl in black, accompanied with a flash of her strange eyes. “They had promised not to drink anything.”

The Lady Edna's aristocratic eyebrows made two half-moons again. “Bless my soul!” she exclaimed inwardly to herself.

“Nellie!” said the lady in green admonishingly to her supposed maid. “Of course there are men in town I could have gone to,” she said, turning to Lady Edna, “but it would have been impossible to keep the matter quiet. The boys are not liked in town,” she added demurely.

“I suppose money will be necessary,” said the Countess, not without an ugly suspicion, “and I have scarcely any with me.”

Her doubtful look was not lost on the lady in green. “That is not what I came for,” she said quickly. “I charge myself with that. I have brought plenty for the purpose.”

“Then what can I do?” asked Lady Edna, surprised and helpless.

“If you would go to the police station and get him out—” suggested the lady in green.

“The police station!” gasped the poor Countess; but to her credit be it said, the urgency of the case was such that she was prepared to dismiss selfish considerations. “Why me?” she looked rather than asked.

The sure eyes of the lady in green fell for a second. “I can't go myself,” she said quietly. “As it is, I'm taking a great risk in coming inside the city limits after dark.”

At this strange reply the Countess's eyebrows went higher than ever; but not to be outdone in savoir faire by the unknown, for the present she forbore asking questions.

“Nellie has already done what she could,” continued the other, “but the police are very much exasperated; it needs you to win them over. I have a cab at the door. You will not be seen.”

The Countess saw no help for it, so prepared to go.

“Ten minutes,” she said briefly, as she returned to her bedroom.

When she rejoined the others that demure half-smile might have been seen again on the face of the lady in green. It was not really a smile, but merely the appearance of a dimple in either cheek. Perhaps her amusement was excited by the Countess's idea of the proper dress in which to visit the police station; certainly with her ample, silken draperies and evening wrap, Lady Edna presented a strong contrast to her trim conductress. She was bare-headed, of course; it would have seemed preposterous to her to wear a hat in a cab after nightfall. As they boarded the cab Lady Edna dimly remembered having been told there was but one cab in Blackfoot which was called the “joy wagon” and driven by a character rejoicing in the sobriquet of “Slimy Dick"—but she was already beginning to take things for granted. As soon as they were seated she asked for particulars of Lord Algy's accident.

“They came into town tonight, mutually agreed not to go into a bar until after they met the train,” said the lady in green; “but the champagne set them off.”

“I didn't realize,” murmured Lady Edna contritely.

“After visiting several places, they raked together all the R. M.'s in town.”

“R. M's?” queried Lady Edna.

“Remittance men,” explained the lady in green. “And charged up and down Roland Avenue, singing 'Rule Britannia' and defying the 'bally colonists,' as they say. Frenchy calls the townspeople Republicans. The police never pay any attention until they begin to break things. It wasn't until they had cleaned out Mat Runyon's place that they were taken in.”

She stopped as if that were all; but the Countess was far from satisfied. “Cleaned out?” she queried, with a mental picture of mops and pails.

“Raided the place—commandeered it” explained the lady in green, searching for an expression familiar to aristocratic ears. “They had gathered quite a gang by that time. Mat runs an all-night restaurant on Roland Avenue. There is a long-standing grouch between him and the boys. Tonight they took him unawares and tied him and his waiter to chairs and put them in one of the alcoves. Then they served lunch to all comers. Bill cooked, Lord Algy served it over the counter and Frenchy stood out on the sidewalk inviting everybody in.”

“What happened then?” demanded Lady Edna breathlessly, as the teller of the story again paused.

“Some friend of Mat's telephoned for the police, I suppose,” said the lady in green in an off-hand tone—plainly the tale was a common one. “They gathered the night force together, four men, and rushed the place. The boys intrenched themselves behind the counter and gave a good account of themselves, of course, using vegetables at long range and kitchen things hand-to-hand—but a frying pan is no defense against a night stick; it crumples right up in your hand.”

“Does it?” murmured Lady Edna unconsciously.

“And the railway gang pitched in with the police—they're always looking for a chance to get back at the aristocrats. The boys were soon carted off to the station on a lorry. It's just as I always tell them,” concluded the lady in green with a vexed air; “the cops are bound to win out in the end.”

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed poor Lady Edna with something of the feeling of a novice to whom terrible mysteries are revealed. She darted a glance of awe at the elegantly-dressed woman by her side, who chatted so familiarly about the darker side of life, who knew so much more than she did. “How did you hear about it?” she asked.

“The boys sent for Nellie,” said the lady in green, “and as soon as she learned how things stood, she came over for me. She walked all the way, too—my place is three miles out of town. Fortunately Dick was there with the carriage and we drove right back to get you.”

This explanation was no explanation to Lady Edna. If the strange Nellie was not the other woman's maid, who was she? She had no opportunity to question further, for at that moment the cab stopped.

The three women alighted on the wooden sidewalk of a side street in the meaner part of Blackfoot. All the little buildings around were tight and rayless, and there was neither a sound nor a breath of wind to ruffle the ghostly stillness. In the east a faint streak of light green was showing: the flavor of the thin, early morning air of the elevated plains was like nothing Lady Edna had ever smelled in England.

“At the end of the block,” said the lady in green in a low voice. “The wooden building with the bell on the gable. Sergeant McPhatter is in charge. He's Scotch and very conceited. We'll wait outside. You'll have to bail out all three, because one won't leave the others. They'll probably ask a hundred and fifty on account of the damage. Here's the money.”

So Lady Edna dutifully bore down on the police station, her slippers tapping the wooden sidewalk delicately, her draperies billowing around her and the roll of bills clasped tightly in her glove. Her heart sank with every step; for the appearance of the Countess of Yetholme in the Blackfoot police station at half-past three in the morning was a horrible picture to contemplate: fortunately, she thought, she could hardly be known by sight in town. Through the window she saw to her relief that the Sergeant was alone. He was tipped back in his chair beside an old-fashioned desk in the corner, grimly bathing an angry lump over his eye with a wet handkerchief.

As Lady Edna opened the door his chair dropped to the floor with a jolt, which corresponded to the fall of his lower jaw. Assuredly such a sight had never been seen within those grimy walls. Lady Edna made the Sergeant think of nothing else but a colored picture of “After the Ball,” such as comes with a Christmas magazine. Unfortunately her very first words recalled the memory of the lump over his eye.

“I understand that Lord Algernon Craucester has been arrested,” she said breathlessly.

“Yes, ma'am!” said Sergeant McPhatter emphatically, endeavoring to convey in the two words a sense of all the wrongs the police had suffered at the hands of the young scapegrace and his companions. He opened a blank book lying on the desk and pointed dramatically to the latest entry. Lady Edna looked over his shoulder and this is what she read:

⁠Lord Algernon Craucester
⁠Baron Fabien de Maurillac
⁠Hon. William Trefusis
⁠Drunk and Disorderly
⁠1.10 A.M.
Constables McPhatior, Pink Appleyard and McGonigle

The poor Countess felt quite faint. “Bless my soul!” she murmured weakly. “Craucester written in a police blotter!” she added to herself. “It would kill the Marquis!”

At first the Sergeant, while respectful, flatly declined to entertain any proposal for the liberation of the gamboliers. “They ain't slep' it off yet,” he quite reasonably protested. “How do I know but what they'll go right back and begin where they left off!”

“I will be responsible,” said the Countess.

“Begging your pardon, ma'am, but you could hardly manage the three of them single-handed. It took four officers to bring them in!”

However, in the end, of course, the lady got her way. But when the Sergeant, having unlocked the door to the cells in the rear, ushered the gamboliers blinking into the light, the wretched Countess was sorry she had made him do it. Such a deplorable sight as that presented by her three young friends was surely never offered to a noblewoman's eyes before. Little blond Algy, who came first, was almost unrecognizable by reason of a bruised eye, already purpling, and a split lip; his light overcoat was plastered all over with gummy black mud. Fabien's face, too, was a mass of cuts and bruises, out of which his dancing black eyes gleamed devilishly. He had lost his overcoat in the scrimmage, and the borrowed dress coat had been split from tail to collar; he was wearing half and the other half was thrown carelessly over his arm. Apparently Bill's pallid face had escaped serious mutilation; but someone had smashed his hat over his ears, where it stayed. The other two had lost their head coverings. The gamboliers were quite unabashed at their situation; and having reached that perfectly irresponsible state where the most extraordinary things appear quite natural, they evinced no surprise at the sight of Lady Edna. The Honorable Bill, mindful of good manners, tugged at his firmly-fixed hat, but only succeeded in carrying away the brim. This he held against his breast with an air, blissfully. unconscious that the crown was still on his head.

They insisted on bidding an affectionate farewell to Sergeant McPhatter, which used up several precious minutes. When Lady Edna finally succeeded in shepherding them to the sidewalk, she was greatly relieved to find that her two companions had advanced under the shadow of the police station and were waiting to aid her.

“The train is on time,” whispered the lady in green. “We have barely half an hour!”

“But see the state they're in!” exclaimed the distracted Countess. “Bless my soul! Now that we've got them out, what shall we do with them?”

“Leave that to me,” said the lady in green.

She seized the exuberant Fabien, who was declaiming to the dawn in broken English, and marched him smartly down the sidewalk. Lady Edna prepared to follow with her nephew, meaning to try to bring him to his senses en route; but to her astonishment he was cut out from under her very nose by the mysterious Nellie, who steered him after Fabien. Lady Edna heard her lecturing him with more freedom than she as an aunt had felt warranted in employing. The Honorable Bill fell to the Countess's share; he offered her his arm with a deferential air, and made dignified conversation in rather a spongy voice.

Fabien, in the van, was behaving scandalously. He seized the hands of the lady in green and galloped her down the sidewalk until at the corner she managed to wrench herself free and soundly boxed his ears. Little Algy listed heavily on the girl in black, whose strong young frame was well braced to support him. He paid not the slightest attention to her admonitions, having so much to say himself that, like a child, he seemed to be in despair of getting it all out. The progress of the party, as may well be imagined, made a startling interruption in the brooding stillness of the street; and Lady Edna trembled at the chance of discovery. She did not know that when anyone in Blackfoot is awakened by that kind of a noise he simply turns over in bed. The poor lady hoped she was dreaming and kept herself up with the fiction that she would presently wake up safe in the Wigwam, with a pillow to bury her hot cheeks in.

The lady in green, without bothering about the cab, piloted them over the two blocks which lie between the police station and the Imperial. It occurred to Lady Edna that the name of this establishment was sadly belied by its obvious character; and as a matter of fact there are seven better hotels, even in Blackfoot. At the door of the Imperial the three women held a short council of war, while the irrepressible gamboliers insisted on going through a figure of the lancers.

“Nellie says they've taken a room here for the night,” said the lady in green. “We'll have to take them upstairs and fix them up.”

“Into this place?” exclaimed Lady Edna in horror.

“But we can't let them go alone,” said the lady in green. “They'd only fall asleep, and we haven't a minute to spare. Of course you can stay here if you like; but while Nellie is getting them black coffee and I make their faces presentable, you could be mending Fabien's coat.”

“Very well,” said Lady Edna desperately.

They made a terrible racket getting up the two flights of stairs, and the poor Countess's heart died within her; but the Imperial is well used to these late—or early—home-comings. Not a head appeared at any of the doors. Arrived at the gamboliers' tiny room, the six of them could barely crowd inside. Nellie promptly deposited Lord Algy in a chair by the door and disappeared in quest of coffee. The energetic lady in green placed the only other chair under the light, and pushing Fabien into it, threw both pieces of his coat on the bed; then producing a needle and thread from the shagreen bag, she handed it to Lady Edna. The Countess sat on the bed and attacked the coat with unaccustomed fingers, while the Honorable Bill, disposing his long frame negligently against the head of the bed, bent over her in a correct ballroom attitude and continued to utter pleasantries. Opposite them Lord Algy was snoring gently and threatening to fall off his chair at any moment.

Between her laborious stitches Lady Edna wonderingly watched the resourceful lady in green as, sitting beside her on the bed, she proceeded to humanize Fabien's battered countenance. All sorts of things appeared in succession out of the shagreen bag—collodion, cold cream, grease paint, rouge and powder; and under the deft, quick strokes of the operator, Fabien seemed to grow a new skin before the Countess's very eyes. White grease paint and powder likewise put an entirely different complexion on his stained shirt front. During this performance Fabien chattered away in his inimitably expressive way, with an affectionate filial freedom which made Lady Edna gasp.

“Dear Pinky!” she heard him say, “'you would have died laughin' to see ol' Mat Runyon go down under one of his own fryin' pans! Bang-o on his bal' pate! He open his eye and his mout' so funny, then bump!—'e is sittin' on the floor. We tie his hands wit' napkins and stick one of his own cigars in his mout'. 'E spit it out! Dear ol' Pinky, if you could only 'ave been there! What fun!”

Who shall say but that somewhere deep down Lady Edna had a fleeting wish that she might have seen it too? After all, she came of robust Cavalier stock.

In a surprisingly short time the mysterious Nellie returned with a pitcher of steaming hot coffee and cups on a tray; also an outfit of caps and clean collars for the trio, and actually an overcoat for Fabien. Where she had procured all this remained a mystery to Lady Edna.

Having finished Fabien, the lady in green changed places on the bed with Lady Edna, the better to reach Lord Algy's face; meanwhile Nellie was filling the coffee-cups on the window sill. The sting of collodion on his wounds brought little Lord Algy up all standing; and, half awake, he assumed a very pugnacious attitude toward the ministrations of the lady in green.

“For heaven's sake, behave yourself, Algy!” said Lady Edna impatiently. “All this trouble is on your account! I'm ashamed of you!”

Nellie suddenly put the pitcher on the bureau, and darting to Lord Algy's side put an arm around him and faced Lady Edna with stormy eyes.

“He isn't a little boy to be lectured before everybody,” she remonstrated. “He's no worse than the others! Wake up, dear,” she continued to Algy. “You promised me you'd brace up.”

“Bless my soul!” ejaculated Lady Edna to herself. “What am I assisting at?” Meanwhile the lady in green, with that demure dimple in either cheek, assiduously painted Lord Algy's bruises.

Strong black coffee brought the three gamboliers a little nearer to the realization of their situation—thereby only increasing the difficulty of handling them, thought Lady Edna, when she heard their ideas begin to come out.

“Dear ol' guv'nor!” gurgled the boyish lordling. “I'll just embrace the old boy and cry down his neck. I say! won't he be jolly glad to see me, though!”

“Bad form!” commented the Honorable Bill severely. “As an Englishman and a gentleman you just want to grip his hand and say, 'Howdo, guv'nor! Tiptop night, ain't it?'”

“Ain't' is rotten bad grammar,” remarked Lord Algy calmly. “Ain't it, Aunt Edna?”

“'Ang it all, he's a sport!” cried Fabien gaily. “I'm goin' to tell him the 'ole story. His ears ain't too tender, wat? If the Markee don' laugh w'en I tell him 'ow Sarge McPhatter got a fry egg slap in the mout' and swallow the mos' of it, he ain't wort'y to be Blondy's pater!”

“That's all right,” said Algy, obstinately sentimental. “I'm the child of his old age. I'm Benjamin. I shall cast myself on his bosom and say, 'Jacob, behold thy son!'”

“I t'ought you said the ol' boy had trouble with the Jews,” remarked Fabien.

“Not the Jews in the Bible, you ass,” returned Lord Algy, with scorn.

“At four-thirty a.m., after four days on the train,” said the Honorable Bill with serious gravity, “I would strongly advise against tryin' on any Benjamin and Jacob racket with the old gentleman.”

“'E'll be t'ankful for a couple of touches, I guess,” said Fabien. “We'll have to bring him down here. The night clerk'll serve us anyt'ing we want in the coat closet.”

Lady Edna stood aghast at the mental picture of the magnificent little Marquis being asked to have a “touch” in the coat closet of the Imperial.

The lady in green gave Algy's restored countenance a final pat with a piece of chamois, and sat back to observe the effect. Barring a slight swelling here and there, he seemed, under the electric light at least, almost his fresh, pink little self.

“It's a blessing the train's on time,” she remarked to Lady Edna. “Daylight would give the whole snap away.”

Nellie took the gamboliers out into the hall, one at a time, and administered a violent brushing. The Countess completed her seam and surveyed it ruefully. She had not held a needle for a long time and it must be confessed that the back of the dress coat exhibited a sadly puckered appearance.

“Never mind,” said the lady in green, dimpling again. “Nellie has an overcoat for him.”

Through the open window came the sound of an engine whistle, not very far off.

The lady in green jumped to her feet. “The train!” she cried. “Boys, are you sober enough to understand me?”

Violent protestations from the gamboliers.

“Then listen! Don't you dare to open your mouths without orders. Her Ladyship will do the talking. You sit tight and we'll give you your cues!”

The gamboliers climbed down, as they would have expressed it. “Right-o, Pinkie!” they cried. “Lead on! We're your men!”

Coats and caps were thrust on them; the whole party descended the stairs like an avalanche, and hand in hand in couples, covered the single block to the station at a run. “Nothing matters now,” thought the Countess, running with the rest, “but if London could see me! Bless my soul, what a scandal!” They arrived breathless on the platform as, with grinding brakes, the long transcontinental express drew to a stop.

Everything passed off beautifully. The stiff little Marquis was plainly gratified by the filial feeling which had led his son to bring his friends to meet him in spite of the unearthly hour; and under the watchful eye of Nellie, and prompted by her whispers, Lord Algy bore himself with exactly the proper measure of deference and affection. To discount any outbreak of hilarity on the part of the gamboliers, Lady Edna allowed the Marquis to understand that the party had come direct to the station from a late affair at the barracks; which seemed perfectly natural to His Lordship. Her greatest anxiety was that she might not be able to keep him out of town until after the police court ordeal later in the day; but upon her representations that it had been impossible to secure fit accommodations in Blackfoot, he agreed it would be wiser to go on up the line to the railroad hotel at Cairngorm Hot Springs, where Lady Edna and Lord Algy could join him in the afternoon. She breathed again.

The train waits ten minutes in Blackfoot. In the bustle attendant upon rechecking His Lordship's trunks, Lady Edna managed to avoid the necessity for general introductions. The lady in green had her hands full keeping the exuberant Fabien in the background, but Nellie was quite prominently in the Marquis's eye; and he seemed to be impressed with her air of quiet watchfulness over Algy. He intimated to his sister that a marriage with a good, worthy person of the country might be the saving of the young scamp, and suggested that, since the young woman was a friend of Lady Edna's, she might be invited to join them at the Springs. His sister shuddered. Indeed, she thought ten minutes was quite long enough a stay in Blackfoot for the Marquis; it was growing lighter every minute and the gamboliers were getting hard to control. It was with a great sigh of relief that she saw the train start at last and pull out with the Marquis on the rear platform, including them all in his smile of condescending approval.

A few minutes later Lady Edna and the lady in green paused at the gate of the Wigwam in mutual embarrassment; the joy-wagon was waiting at the curb.

“My family owes you a great deal for what you've done tonight,” began the Countess after an awkward pause; “and I—I don't know whom to thank.”

The lady in green looked at her in surprise. “I thought you knew who I was,” she said.

As Lady Edna looked at her one of her eardrops flashed a soft, pinky reflection from the electric light at the corner; with that tiny gleam Lady Edna remembered bits of Blackfoot tea-table gossip and understood at last.

“They call you the—the Pink Pearl?” she murmured interrogatively.

The lady in green nodded her head and looked away.

“So glad to have met you,” murmured Lady Edna automatically—but her sense of humor came to her aid. “I like you,” she said in her amplest manner.

“I like you, too,” said the lady in green softly; “and I didn't expect to.”

“Do you think your maid can be trusted to get them safely back to the Imperial?” asked the Countess after another pause.

“Nellie isn't my maid,” said the other quickly.

Lady Edna's eyebrows went up again. “Then who is Nellie?” she murmured in distress.

“I suppose you have to know,” said the lady in green uncomfortably. “She's known as Nellie Foster, a dining-room girl at the Imperial. Her legal name is—”

“Yes?” demanded Lady Edna breathlessly.

“Lady Algernon Craucester,” said the lady in green.