"That's how it turned out. I'll tell you how it was. This dress, you see, that I've got on, it isn't my own, it belongs to a lady who's a friend of mine. I asked her to lend it to me directly I knew I was coming down here, and she said she would; but we're not the same figures, you know, and I knew it'd want a good bit of altering, taking in here and letting out there; your friends'll understand how sometimes one lady's dress has to be pulled about before it can be got to fit another, and I thought it wouldn't be finished before the train I told you of. But it turned out after all that there wasn't so much difference in our waists as I'd supposed, she was only three-quarters of an inch--"

Frank made a gallant effort to curtail what bade fair to be some extremely intimate personal details.

"Did you say you'd have some tea?"

"I didn't say anything about it, that I know of. I can't say that I care for tea, not as a general rule; but I don't mind having a drop if there's nothing better going. Hullo, where's the old lady off to?--and the old chap I mistook for you?"

The "old lady" and the "old chap" were Lady Pickard and General Taylor. The pair were making a dash for cover.

"Why, they're all going!"

They all were. Following her ladyship's lead the entire company was showing a disposition to seek safety in flight. Frank stammered an explanation.

"You see, they had their tea before you came; I expect they've all got something to do."

Miss Lorraine feigned indifference, even if she felt it not.

"Oh, they can go for all I care. It makes no odds to me. If my company isn't good enough for them I'm sure I don't want to keep 'em. Besides, if we're left alone it'll give you a chance to say some of those pretty things which are nearly dropping off the tip of your tongue. I say, Frankie, don't you think I'm looking simply sweet?"

What "Frankie" answered the chronicles do not state.

CHAPTER IV

"Frank, is this an intentional outrage of which you have been guilty?

Or is it an insolent practical joke which you have planned to play at the expense of your mother's friends?"

For the first time in his life Frank Pickard saw his mother really angry. Of the reality of her anger, as he confronted her in her boudoir, to which he had ascended in obedience to an urgent summons, there could be no doubt. He was conscious that her anger was justified. He was ready enough to admit it.

"It is neither, mother. Only--I don't understand."

"What don't you understand?"

"How the Miss Lorraine I saw yesterday has become transformed into the Miss Lorraine you saw just now."

"My dear Frank, I don't wish to hurt your feelings--although you have shown yourself indifferent as to mine--"

"Mother!"

"So I will not probe too deeply into the matter of what you call 'transformations,' and similar mysteries; I merely wish to know how long you propose to allow that person--whose presence, even in the immediate neighbourhood, is a monstrous insult both to your acquaintances and to me--to continue on these premises."

"I should like you, first of all, to believe that this is not the person I saw yesterday."

"Do you desire me to understand that this is not the person you asked to be your wife?"

"She is, and she is not. I a.s.sure you that I should never have extended that invitation to the person you have seen to-day. At present, I can't explain. I don't understand myself. A trick has been played on me. Before I have finished I will find out exactly how it has been done; and why, and by whom it has been played."

"And in the meantime, while you are examining the intricacies of a puzzle which is simplicity itself to all but you, do you propose that the young woman shall continue an inmate of this establishment?"

"I do not. On the contrary, I have requested General Taylor to get rid of her at once."

"Frank!"

"Mother, I am not the fool I seem to be. I a.s.sure you that the girl I fell in love with, and whom I asked to be my wife, was not like the one you have seen. I have already been putting two and two together. I am beginning to suspect that I have been the victim of some sort of conspiracy. The only thing I can do is to free myself from it as soon as I possibly can."

"But how do you intend to be rid of the girl? You don't imagine that she will take herself off at your mere request--or General Taylor's?"

"I am inclined to fancy that this is about to resolve itself into a question of money. I have instructed the Genera! to offer her any sum within reason for my release, and for the return of a certain doc.u.ment which she obtained from me yesterday."

"Frank!"

"You see, mother, it is necessary to take immediate action; at any cost I must free you from the risk of again encountering this person, not to speak of the others. Had I more time for consideration, I might take other steps. As it is, I don't think that the General will have so much difficulty as he perhaps antic.i.p.ates."

For once in a while, rather late in the day, Frank Pickard's judgment was not at fault; General Taylor had no difficulty whatever. The General had an interview with the lady in question in the library, having deemed it desirable to fortify himself for it by a preliminary gla.s.s of sherry. As it turned out, however, as a fortifier the sherry was completely wasted; he had no resistance to encounter.

He opened proceedings with what was distinctly a professional tone and air.

"I am a soldier, Miss--eh--Lorraine, and therefore accustomed to come to the point without any sort of circ.u.mlocution. I will therefore at once put to you the question for which I have solicited the favour of this interview. How much do you require to leave this house at once; to release Sir Frank Pickard from his engagement to marry you, and for the surrender of the written undertaking which you extracted from him yesterday?"

Some ladies would have resented both the form in which the inquiry was couched, and the manner in which it was put. The General thought it extremely possible that, in this case, resentment might take a shape which was at once active and unpleasant. He was mistaken. The lady, as soon as the inquiry was addressed to her, answered, with the most matter-of-fact air in the world,--

"Five thousand pounds."

The General stared. He was genuinely taken aback by the magnitude of the demand, and by the prompt calmness with which it was made.

"Five thousand pounds! Monstrous! Do you take Sir Frank Pickard for a fool?"

The lady smiled.

"I don't think, General, that, if I were you, I should ask too many questions like that--it might be awkward for everyone concerned. The sum I have named is my lowest figure; my very lowest. As I believe the lawyers put it, it is named without prejudice. Unless I receive a cheque for that amount during the next fifteen minutes by that clock on the shelf, the figure will be raised. And as, also, if I am to remain for dinner there is not much time for me to put on my other frock--a startler, General, I give you my word!--I shall be obliged if you will not keep me a moment longer than you can help."

The General stared still more. It burst on him, with the force of an electric shock, that his young friend had placed himself in a very peculiar position indeed. Some remarks, in good, plain Saxon, were exchanged. As a result, the General interviewed his princ.i.p.al. After a period of time, which probably did not much exceed the fifteen minutes she had named, the lady quitted the house she had so recently entered as an invited guest, with her brown-paper parcels, and her cardboard bonnet-box, but without that sheet of paper on which Sir Frank Pickard had placed a formal undertaking to make her his wife.

That same night when, at last, Joe Lamb was enabled, by the closing of his master's shop, to get out into the streets to obtain what, comparatively speaking, was a mouthful of fresh air, he received a boisterous salute from a female in gorgeous and fantastic attire.

"Hullo, Joey! How goes it, my gay young pippin?"

He showed signs of objecting both to the address, and the person from whom it came.

"Don't holler at me like that; who are you? Why--if it isn't Peggy!

What's the meaning of this Guy Fawkes show?"

"Crummy, isn't it? It's earned me that."

She held out in front of him a slip of paper. He took it in his fingers.

"What's this?--a cheque?--payable to you!--for five thousand pounds!

Peggy, what does this mean?"