Sir John's reply was incoherent. He called a waiter.

"Garcon," he said, "will you ask the gentleman at the next table if he will do me the honour of taking a gla.s.s of wine with me."

The stranger came over to them smiling. He had been on the point of leaving the restaurant. He accepted the gla.s.s of wine, and bowed.

"I drink your very good health, Sir John and Lady Ferringhall," he said, "and I wish you a pleasant journey back to England. If I might take the liberty, Sir John," he added, with a humorous gleam in his eyes, "I should like to congratulate you upon your tie."

"Oh, d.a.m.n the thing!" Sir John exclaimed, tucking the loose ends inside his coat.

"I propose," Sir John said, "that we pay for our dinner--which we haven't had--tip the garcon a sovereign, and take a cab to the Ritz."

Annabel shook her head.

"Look at our clothes," she exclaimed, "and besides, the funny little proprietor has gone down himself to help it along. He would be so disappointed. I am sure it will be good, John, and I could eat anything. No, let us dine here, and then go and have our coffee on the boulevards. We can take our things up with us and stay at the Continental or the Ritz."

"Excellent," Sir John declared. "We will do Paris like the tourists, and thank G.o.d here comes dinner."

Everything was good. The garcon was tipped as he had never been tipped before in his life. They drove up into Paris in an open _fiacre_ with a soft cool wind blowing in their faces, hand in hand beneath the rug. They went first to a hotel, and then out again on to the boulevards. The natural gaiety of the place seemed to have affected them both. They laughed and talked and stared about them. She took his hand in hers.

"Dear John," she whispered. "We are to begin our married life to-night--here where I first met you. I shall only pray that I may reward you for all your goodness to me."

Sir John, frankly oblivious of the possibility of pa.s.sers-by, took her into his arms and kissed her. Then he stood up and hailed a _fiacre_.

"Hotel Ritz!"

_Chapter x.x.xI_

ANNA'S TEA PARTY

"I suppose you haven't the least idea who I am," Lady Lescelles said, as she settled herself in Anna's most comfortable chair.

"I have heard of you, of course," Anna answered hesitatingly, "but----"

"You cannot imagine what I have come to see you about. Well, I am Nigel Ennison's sister!"

"Oh!" Anna said.

"Nigel is like all men," Lady Lescelles continued. "He is a sad blunderer. He has helped me out of sc.r.a.pes though, no end of times. He is an awfully good sort--and now he has come to me to help him if I can. Do you know that he is very much in love with you?"

Anna smiled.

"Well," she admitted. "He has said something of the sort."

"And you have sent him about his business. He tells me that you will not even see him. I don't want to bother you, of course. A woman has a perfect right to choose her own husband, but Nigel seemed to think that there was something a little mysterious about your treatment of him. You seemed, he thought, to have some grievance which you would not explain and which he thought must arise from a misunderstanding.

There, that sounds frightfully involved, doesn't it, but perhaps you can make out what I mean. Don't you care for Nigel at all?"

Anna was silent for a moment or two.

Lady Lescelles, graceful, very fashionably but quietly dressed, leaned back and watched her with shrewd kindly eyes.

"I like your brother better than any other man I know," Anna said at last.

"Well, I don't think you told him as much as that, did you?" Lady Lescelles asked.

"I did not," Anna answered. "To be frank with you, Lady Lescelles, when your brother asked me the other day to be his wife I was under a false impression as regards his relations--with some other person. I know now that I was mistaken."

"That sounds more promising," Lady Lescelles declared. "May I tell Nigel to come and see you again? I am not here to do his love-making for him, you know. I came to see you on my own account."

"Thank you very much," Anna said. "It is very nice of you to come, but I do not think for the present, at any rate, I could give him any other answer. I do not intend to be married, or to become engaged just at present."

"Well, why not?" Lady Lescelles asked, smiling. "I can only be a few years older than you, and I have been married four years. I can a.s.sure you, I wouldn't be single again for worlds. One gets a lot more fun married."

"Our cases are scarcely similar," Anna remarked.

"Why not?" Lady Lescelles answered. "You are one of the Hampshire Pellissiers, I know, and your family are quite as good as ours. As for money, Nigel has tons of it."

"It isn't exactly that," Anna answered, "but to tell you the truth, I cannot bear to look upon myself as a rank failure. We girls, my sister and I, were left quite alone when our father died, and I made up my mind to make some little place in the world for myself. I tried painting and couldn't get on. Then I came to London and tried almost everything--all failures. I had two offers of marriage from men I liked very much indeed, but it never occurred to me to listen to either of them. You see I am rather obstinate. At last I tried a dramatic agent, and got on the music hall stage."

"Well, you can't say you're a failure there," Lady Lescelles remarked, smiling. "I've been to hear you lots of times."

"I have been more fortunate than I deserved," Anna answered, "but I only meant to stay upon the music hall stage until I could get something better. I am rehearsing now for a new play at the 'Garrick'

and I have quite made up my mind to try and make some sort of position for myself as an actress."

"Do you think it is really worth while?" Lady Lescelles asked gently.

"I am sure you will marry Nigel sooner or later, and then all your work will be thrown away."

Anna shook her head.

"If I were to marry now," she said, "it would be with a sense of humiliation. I should feel that I had been obliged to find some one else to fight my battles for me."

"What else," Lady Lescelles murmured, "are men for?"

Anna laughed.

"Afterwards," she said, "I should be perfectly content to have everything done for me. But I do think that if a girl is to feel comfortable about it they should start fairly equal. Take your case, for instance. You brought your husband a large fortune, your people were well known in society, your family interest I have heard was useful to him in his parliamentary career. So far as I am concerned, I am just now a hopeless nonent.i.ty. Your brother has everything--I have not shown myself capable even of earning my own living except in a way which could not possibly bring any credit upon anybody. And beyond this, Lady Lescelles, as you must know, recent events have set a good many people's tongues wagging, and I am quite determined to live down all this scandal before I think of marrying any one."

"I am sure," Lady Lescelles said, gently, "that the last consideration need not weigh with you in the least. No one in the world is beyond the shaft of scandal--we all catch it terribly sometimes. It simply doesn't count."

"You are very kind," Anna said. "I do hope I have been able to make you understand how I feel, that you don't consider me a hopeless prig.

It does sound a little horrid to talk so much about oneself and to have views."

"I think," Lady Lescelles said, putting down her teacup, "that I must send Nigel to plead his own cause. I may tell him, at any rate, that you will see him?"