"Good Lord! Had it much in it?"
"Not very much. But enough to buy a ticket home."
"Any use asking where that is?" "None, I'm afraid."
"I wasn't going to, of course."
"Of course not. That's what I admire so much in you. You aren't inquisitive." George reflected.
"There's only one thing to be done. You will have to wait in the cab at the hotel, while I go and get some money. Then, if you'll let
me, I can lend you what you require."
"It's much too kind of you. Could you manage eleven shillings?" "Easily. I've just had a legacy."
"Of course, if you think I ought to be economical, I'll go third-class. That would only be five shillings. Ten-and-six is the first-class
fare. So you see the place I want to get to is two hours from London."
"Well, that's something to know." "But not much, is it?"
"I think I had better lend you a sovereign. Then you'll be able to buy a lunch-basket."
"You think of everything. And you're perfectly right. I shall be starving. But how do you know you will get the money back?" "I'll risk it."
"Well, then, I shall have to be inquisitive and ask your name.
Otherwise I shan't know where to send the money." "Oh, there's no mystery about me. I'm an open book."
"You needn't be horrid about it. I can't help being mysterious." "I didn't mean that."
"It sounded as if you did. Well, who is my benefactor?"
"My name is George Bevan. I am staying at the Carlton at present."
18
"I'll remember."
The taxi moved slowly down the Haymarket. The girl laughed.
"Yes?" said George.
"I was only thinking of back there. You know, I haven't thanked you nearly enough for all you did. You were wonderful." "I'm very glad I was able to be of any help."
"What did happen? You must remember I couldn't see a thing except your back, and I could only hear indistinctly."
"Well, it started by a man galloping up and insisting that you had got into the cab. He was a fellow with the appearance of a before-using advertisement of an anti-fat medicine and the manners of a ring-tailed chimpanzee."
The girl nodded.
"Then it was Percy! I knew I wasn't mistaken." "Percy?"
"That is his name."
"It would be! I could have betted on it."
"What happened then?"
"I reasoned with the man, but didn't seem to soothe him, and finally he made a grab for the door-handle, so I knocked off his hat,
and while he was retrieving it we moved on and escaped." The girl gave another silver peal of laughter.
"Oh, what a shame I couldn't see it. But how resourceful of you! How did you happen to think of it?"
"It just came to me," said George modestly.
A serious look came into the girl's face. The smile died out of her eyes. She shivered.
"When I think how some men might have behaved in your place!"
"Oh, no. Any man would have done just what I did. Surely, knocking off Percy's hat was an act of simple courtesy which anyone
would have performed automatically!"
"You might have been some awful bounder. Or, what would have been almost worse, a slow-witted idiot who would have stopped to
ask questions before doing anything. To think I should have had the luck to pick you out of all London!"
"I've been looking on it as a piece of luck--but entirely from my viewpoint."
She put a small hand on his arm, and spoke earnestly.
"Mr. Bevan, you mustn't think that, because I've been laughing a good deal and have seemed to treat all this as a joke, you haven't saved me from real trouble. If you hadn't been there and hadn't acted with such presence of mind, it would have been terrible!"
"But surely, if that fellow was annoying you, you could have called a policeman?"
"Oh, it wasn't anything like that. It was much, much worse. But I mustn't go on like this. It isn't fair on you." Her eyes lit up again with the old shining smile. "I know you have no curiosity about me, but still there's no knowing whether I might not arouse some if I went on piling up the mystery. And the silly part is that really there's no mystery at all. It's just that I can't tell anyone about it."
19
"That very fact seems to me to constitute the makings of a pretty fair mystery."
"Well, what I mean is, I'm not a princess in disguise trying to escape from anarchists, or anything like those things you read about in books. I'm just in a perfectly simple piece of trouble. You would be bored to death if I told you about it."
"Try me."
She shook her head.
"No. Besides, here we are." The cab had stopped at the hotel, and a commissionaire was already opening the door. "Now, if you haven't repented of your rash offer and really are going to be so awfully kind as to let me have that money, would you mind rushing off and getting it, because I must hurry. I can just catch a good train, and it's hours to the next."
"Will you wait here? I'll be back in a moment."
"Very well."
The last George saw of her was another of those exhilarating smiles of hers. It was literally the last he saw of her, for, when he returned not more than two minutes later, the cab had gone, the girl had gone, and the world was empty.
To him, gaping at this wholly unforeseen calamity the commissionaire vouchsafed information. "The young lady took the cab on, sir."
"Took the cab on?"
"Almost immediately after you had gone, sir, she got in again and told the man to drive to Waterloo."
George could make nothing of it. He stood there in silent perplexity, and might have continued to stand indefinitely, had not his
mind been distracted by a dictatorial voice at his elbow.
"You, sir! Dammit!"
A second taxicab had pulled up, and from it a stout, scarlet-faced young man had sprung. One glance told George all. The hunt was up once more. The bloodhound had picked up the trail. Percy was in again!
For the first time since he had become aware of her flight, George was thankful that the girl had disappeared. He perceived that he had too quickly eliminated Percy from the list of the Things That Matter. Engrossed with his own affairs, and having regarded their late skirmish as a decisive battle from which there would be no rallying, he had overlooked the possibility of this annoying and unnecessary person following them in another cab--a task which, in the congested, slow-moving traffic, must have been a perfectly simple one. Well, here he was, his soul manifestly all stirred up and his blood-pressure at a far higher figure than his doctor would have approved of, and the matter would have to be opened all over again.
"Now then!" said the stout young man.
George regarded him with a critical and unfriendly eye. He disliked this fatty degeneration excessively. Looking him up and down, he could find no point about him that gave him the least pleasure, with the single exception of the state of his hat, in the side of which he was rejoiced to perceive there was a large and unshapely dent.
"You thought you had shaken me off ! You thought you'd given me the slip! Well, you're wrong!"
George eyed him coldly.
"I know what's the matter with you," he said. "Someone's been feeding you meat."
The young man bubbled