In the second year of her widowhood in the month of November, whilst her hair was still golden and her colouring unpurchased, she had dined _a deux_ in one of those delectable, ghost-ridden, low-ceilinged sets of chambers which are tucked away in a certain Inn within the Fleet Street boundary.

Which is a silly thing to do if you do not own a car and a long-suffering discreet chauffeur.

The _diner a deux_ and a bit of a play had been the honest programme; but the inevitable had happened in an all-enveloping blanket of a fog, on account of which everything in the shape of a hackney carriage had gone home, and an excursion on foot to the nearest tube rendered hopeless by the simple fact that you could not see your hand before your face.

Which would not have mattered a bit if only, as the fog lifted and the clock of St Dunstan's chimed the hour of three a.m., she had emerged from the narrow opening into Fleet Street with the aplomb or _savoir-faire_, which are almost twins, necessary to the occasion.

She would then have beckoned to and smiled sweetly upon the young ruffian into whom she b.u.mped as he lounged on his way to Covent Garden Market, and promised him just enough to bring her a taxi or something on wheels, into which she would have got if it had materialised, and been whirled away to safety and bed after adieux to her host uttered with the nonchalance necessary to allay the young ruffian's suspicions.

Instead of this she had slunk from the opening with her host close behind, had b.u.mped into the young ruffian and with an exclamation of dismay had shrunk back into the shadows and her host's arms.

In consequence of which action the bare-footed ruffian had shadowed them until they had met a four-wheeler, had held the lady's dress from the wheel and overheard the address given to the driver for which he had received tuppence, and had disappeared into a doorway where he had spat on his unearned increment and made his plans.

The upshot of it all being the admittance a fortnight later of young Wal. Hickle, attired in his best and primed with her family history, into the presence of the terrified woman.

He had simply asked for twenty pounds on the nail in return for his silence.

And she, scared out of her wits, instead of threatening him with the law, had given him a cheque--yes! a cheque--and he, with a flash of that cunning which was to lead him eventually to a seat amongst the plutocrats, had pocketed it and grinned.

"I doan' wan' mor' 'en twenty uv the best, lidy, jus' to mike a start--an' I doan' wanter part wiv yer 'and-writin' niver. So jes' yer send two rustlers, wot means notes, of ten pun each, rigistered, to W.

'ickle spelt wiv a haitch, 2 H'apple Blossom Row, Coving Gardin, afore this toime ter-morrer. An' jes yer remember that h'as long as yer lives I've got yer bit of 'andwritin.' I ain't goin' ter use it, but some dye it might come in 'andy. 'Ardly loikly as 'ow yer'd buy twenty pun wurf of veg from Wal 'ickle eh, lidy?--it 'ud want _some_ h'explanation."

Then this soul made in the image and likeness of his G.o.d and found good, but hidden under the civilising process of the twentieth century which had given him the morals of a jackal and the status of a pariah dog, sighed as he looked round the dainty room.

"S'welp me," he said, as he touched a satin cushion with his coa.r.s.e, broken-nailed finger-tips, "h'if oi h'understand wye a woman the loikes uv _you_, wiv h'everyfink she wants, cawn't run _strite_!"

"Oh! but," whimpered the woman, "it was all the fault of the fog, _really_ it was!"

"Garn!" replied the young ruffian as he opened the door and slammed it behind him.

CHAPTER XIV

"Surely I am more brutish than any man!"--_The Bible_.

And just about midsummer Fate tweaked the string to which was hobbled Susan Hetth.

A vulgar but resplendent bachelor middle-aged millionaire, sterling, not dollars, in order to set his gastronomic house in order, had taken a notion for the simple life for just as long as the notion should last, and a perfect bijou of a thatched cottage t'other side of Clovelly for a year.

With a notion of buying the cottage at Lee in which had dwelt the three historic maids, he had swept one day through the village in the latest thing in cars.

Baulked in his intent, and with time upon his podgy hands, he had rolled, minus the car, along the village path over the strippet of water and the sunbaked gra.s.s to the harbour.

There he had bent, with ardour and misgivings, to pick up Leonie's towel, just as the soft wind caught her bathing cloak as she stretched out her hand with a smile of thanks.

She had grabbed at the cloak and missed it by a bit, so that it had swept behind her, hanging from one shoulder like some Grecian drapery, and the rotund little man had trotted round her draped side, picked up the cloak by the big b.u.t.ton, and completed his trot, covering her up as he moved.

And as he trotted his little porcine eyes had glistened as they lingered upon the perfect figure, from the slim ankles to the confused face, and Leonie had blushed, though you could not have discerned it through the tan, pulled the cloak tighter and hurried across the road to the cottage gate.

But with the clumsy swiftness of the elephantine, the man had run after her and opened the cottage gate just as Susan Hetth opened the cottage door with the welcoming announcement that tea was ready.

"Ha!" he had snorted as he almost ran up the path, leaving Leonie to stand still and stare in amazement at the little scene. "And I'll have some tea, too, Lady Susan Hetth, and how d'you do. Long time since we met, eh?"

Diamonds sparkled in the sun as the man stretched out an effusive hand, and a flame of anger sparkled in the small eyes as Lady Susan drew back frigidly.

Not being of them herself she set all the greater store on knowing those she considered exactly the right people.

"I don't think I have----" she commenced in her most primpsy voice, when she was interrupted with a perfectly odious familiarity.

"Now you're not going to say that you don't remember our little meetings in Earls Court _and_ Fleet Street and"--the man spoke with an extreme slowness as though keeping guard over each letter of each word--"_and_ our little correspondence, come now."

Leonie frowned and moved a step forward protectingly as her aunt caught suddenly at the door handle, and then jerked herself forward with outstretched hand.

"Auntie, dear----"

But her aunt was speaking in the falsetto of forced levity, and Leonie held her peace and waited for an opportunity to slip past and into the house.

"Why, I do believe," said Susan Hetth, suddenly metamorphosed by a certain tone in the man's voice into the terrified woman of years ago, "Yes! I do believe it is Mr. Walter Hickle----"

"_Sir_ Walter, _if_ you please."

"Indeed, in-deed--how _very_ delightful, and after _all_ these years!

Leonie, this is--is--er----"

"I'm one of your aunt's friends, Miss Leonie, bobbed up out of the past. Glad to meet you, hope we shall be friends, too."

Leonie, who had gained the door, looked back over her aunt's shoulder and spoke with a gentle courtesy very much her own.

"I always like to meet Auntie's friends!"

Not knowing the man from Adam she spoke no untruth, but in spite of reiterated calls to come down to tea she remained in her bedroom until the loud-voiced guest had taken his departure.

While the two women were having yet another cup of tea Sir Walter Hickle, millionaire, tradesman, and knight, sat down gingerly upon a rock and made his plans.

He had made his plans as a bull-necked, offensive youth the first day he had pulled out from Covent Garden with a barrow piled with walnuts bought out of two rustlers, value of ten pun each.

"I'll _get there_!" he had informed the nuts as he tweaked his cap over one eye, and his red neckerchief into place; and had sworn a mighty and quite unprintable oath as he struck a huge fist into a h.o.r.n.y palm at the corner of Ludgate Circus and New Bridge Street.

"I'll _get there_!" he informed the seaweed as he lifted the soft grey hat from his bald head and adjusted the enormous pearl pin in the pale pink satin tie; and he sighed stertorously as he complacently patted his knee with a podgy hand, upon the manicured plebeian fingers of which shone two magnificent diamond rings.

And if you cannot penetrate the strongholds of Devon county, it is not difficult to make acquaintance with her visitors, especially if your visiting card is a gilt edge security for future excursions and diversions done in top-hole style.

Unsuspecting Leonie, who never kept a grudge, after a week or so of astonishment and aversion, thinking in her innocence of heart that she perceived the trend of events, made up her mind to meet the rotund old knight with the simple graciousness due to her aunt's would-be husband.

True, the elasticity of her graciousness did not stretch enough to allow her to accept the never-ending invitations which poured into the cottage; but she would tuck her remonstrating aunt into the car which was ever at the gate, and smile delightfully upon the infatuated old fellow who put her aloofness down to mere girlish waywardness.