★ 12 ★::A Gentleman of Leisure
Making a Start
Self-possession was one of Jimmy’s leading characteristics, but for the moment he himself speechless. This girl had been his for so long that—in his mind—he had very with her. It was something of a to come out of his and the that she was in a stranger. He as one might with a friend memory has been out. It against the to have to again from the after all the time they had been together.
A upon him.
“Why, how do you do, Mr. Pitt?” she said, out her hand.
Jimmy to better. It was something that she his name.
“It’s like meeting somebody out of a dream,” said Molly. “I have sometimes if you were real. Everything that that night was so like a dream.”
Jimmy his tongue.
“You haven’t altered,” he said; “you look just the same.”
“Well,” she laughed, “after all, it’s not so long ago, is it?”
He was of a hurt. To him it had years. But he was nothing to her—just an acquaintance, one of a hundred. But what more, he asked himself, he have expected? And with the came consolation. The painful of having ground left him. He saw he had been to out of proportion. He had not ground. He had it. He had met her again and she him. What more had he any right to ask?
“I’ve a good into the time,” he explained. “I’ve been about a since we met.”
“Do you live in Shropshire?” asked Molly.
“No. I’m on a visit—at least, I’m to be; but I’ve the way to the place, and I am to if I shall 75get there. I was told to go on. I’ve gone on, and here I am, in the snow. Do you to know Dreever Castle is?”
She laughed.
“Why,” she said, “I’m at Dreever Castle myself.”
“What?”
“So the person you meet out to be an guide. You’re lucky, Mr. Pitt.”
“You’re right,” said Jimmy slowly; “I am.”
“Did you come with Lord Dreever? He passed me in the car just as I was starting out. He was with another man and Lady Julia Blunt. Surely he didn’t make you walk?”
“I offered to walk. Somebody had to. Apparently he had to let them know he was me.”
“And then he you! He’s very casual, I’m afraid.”
“Inclined that way, perhaps.”
“Have you Lord Dreever long?”
“Since a quarter-past twelve last night.”
“Last night!”
“We met at the Savoy, and later on the Embankment. We looked at the river together and told each other the painful of our lives, and this he called and me here.”
Molly looked at him with amusement.
“You must be a very of person,” she said. “You to do a great of moving about.”
“I do,” said Jimmy. “I can’t keep still. I’ve got the go-fever, like the man in Kipling’s book.”
“But he was in love.”
“Yes,” said Jimmy; “he was. That’s the bacillus, you know.”
She a quick at him. He to her. She was at the age of and speculations. From being an ordinary man with more of manner than the majority of the men she had met, he in an into something of closer attention. He took on a and romance. She what of a girl it was that he loved. Examining him in the light of this new discovery, she him attractive. Something to have to put her in with him. She noticed for the time a the of his 76manner. His self-possession was the self-possession of the man who had been and has himself.
At the of her consciousness, too, there was a of some emotion, which she not analyse, not pain. It was of the of which she had as a small child on the occasions when her father had been and and had her by his manner that she was his thoughts. This was but a of that misery, but there was a resemblance. It was a desolate, shut-out sensation, resentful.
It was gone in a moment. But it had been there. It had passed over her as the of a cloud moves across a in the summer-time.
For some moments she without speaking. Jimmy did not the silence. He was looking at her with an in his eyes. Why she not understand? She must understand.
But the that met his were those of a child.
As they there the horse, which had been in a manner at the by the roadside, his and impatiently. There was something so about the performance that Jimmy and the girl laughed simultaneously. The of the the spell. It was a noisy for food.
“Poor Dandy!” said Molly. “He he’s near home, and he it’s his dinner-time.”
“Are we near the castle, then?”
“It’s a long way by the road, but we can cut across the fields. Aren’t these English and just perfect? I love them! Of I loved America, but——”
“Have you left New York long?” asked Jimmy.
“We came over here about a month after you were at our house.”
“You didn’t much time there, then?”
“Father had just a good of money in Wall Street. He must have been making it when I was on the Mauretania. He wanted to New York, so we didn’t wait. We were in London all the winter. Then we over to Paris. It was there we met Sir Thomas Blunt and Lady Julia. Have you met them? They are Lord Dreever’s uncle and aunt.”
“I’ve met Lady Julia.”
“Do you like her?”
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Jimmy hesitated.
“Well, you see——”
“I know. She’s your hostess, but you haven’t started your visit yet, so you’ve just got time to say what you think of her you have to she’s perfect.”
“Well——”
“I her,” said Molly crisply. “I think she’s hard and hateful.”
“Well, I can’t say she me as a of female Cheeryble Brother. Lord Dreever me to her at the station. She to it pluckily, but with some difficulty.”
“She’s hateful,” Molly. “So is he—Sir Thomas, I mean. He’s one of those fussy, little men. They Lord Dreever till I wonder he doesn’t rebel. They him like a schoolboy. It makes me wild. It’s such a shame. He’s so and good-natured. I am so sorry for him.”
Jimmy to this with mixed feelings. It was sweet of her to be so sympathetic; but was it sympathy? There had been a ring in her voice and a on her which had to Jimmy’s mind a personal in the down-trodden peer. Reason told him that it was to be of Lord Dreever. A good fellow, of course, but not to be taken seriously. The man in him, on the other hand, him all Molly’s male friends with an hatred. Not that he Lord Dreever. He liked him. But he if he go on him for long if Molly were to continue in this strain.
His for the one was not put to the test. Molly’s next had to do with Sir Thomas.
“The of it is,” she said, “father and Sir Thomas are such friends. In Paris they were always together. Father did him a very good turn.”
“How was that?”
“It was one just after we arrived. A man got into Lady Julia’s room while we were all out father. Father saw him go into the room, and something was wrong, in after him. The man was trying to Lady Julia’s jewels. He had opened the box where they were kept, and was actually her rope of diamonds in his hand when father him. It’s the most thing I saw. Sir Thomas told father he gave a hundred thousand for it.”
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“But surely,” said Jimmy, “hadn’t the management of the hotel a safe for valuables?”
“Of they had; but you don’t know Sir Thomas. He wasn’t going to trust any hotel safe. He’s the of man who on doing in his own way, and who always he can do for himself than anyone else can do them for him. He had had this special box made, and would keep the diamonds else. Naturally the opened it in a minute. A would have no with a thing like that.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, the man saw father and the jewels, and ran off the corridor. Father him a little way, but, of course, it was no good; so he and and every he see and gave the alarm, but the man was found. Still, he left the diamonds. That was the great thing, after all. You must look at them to-night at dinner. They are wonderful. Are you a judge of at all?”
“I am, rather,” said Jimmy; “in fact, a I once told me I had a natural gift in that direction. And so, of course, Sir Thomas was to your father?”
“He gushed. He couldn’t do for him. You see, if the diamonds had been I’m sure Lady Julia would have Sir Thomas her another rope just as good. He’s of her, I’m certain. He not to it; but he is. And having to pay another hundred thousand dollars, he would have the last of it. It would have his for being and doing than else.”
“But didn’t the that the got the and was only stopped by a from away with them do that?”
Molly with laughter.
“She knew. Sir Thomas got to the hotel an hour she did. I’ve such a hour. He had the manager up and him, and him to secrecy—which the manager was only too to agree to, it wouldn’t have done the hotel any good to have it known. And the manager the servants, and the each other, and talked at the same time, and father and I promised not to tell a soul; so Lady Julia doesn’t know a word about it to this day. And I don’t see why she should; though 79one of these days I’ve a good mind to tell Lord Dreever! Think what a he would have over them! They’d be able to him again.”
“I shouldn’t,” said Jimmy, trying to keep a touch of out of his voice. This of Lord Dreever, sweet and admirable, was a little distressing.
She looked up quickly.
“You don’t think I meant to, do you?”
“No, no,” said Jimmy hastily. “Of not.”
“Well, I should think so!” said Molly indignantly. “After I promised not to tell a about it.”
Jimmy chuckled.
“It’s nothing,” he said, in answer to her look of inquiry.
“You laughed at something.”
“Well,” said Jimmy apologetically, “it’s only—it’s nothing really—only what I meant is, you have just told one a good about it, haven’t you?”
Molly pink. Then she smiled.
“I don’t know how I came to do it,” she declared. “It out of its own accord. I it is I know I can trust you.”
Jimmy with pleasure. He to her and halted, but she to walk on.
“You can,” he said; “but how do you know you can?”
“Why,” she said—she stopped for a moment, and then on hurriedly, with a touch of embarrassment—“why, how absurd! Of I know. Can’t you read faces? I can. Look,” she said, pointing, “now you can see the castle. How do you like it?”
They had a point where the downward. A hundred yards away, by woods, the of which proved such a kill-joy of old to the Welsh sportsman the season. Even now it had a air of defiance. The setting sun up the of the lake. No were to be moving in the grounds. The place a of sleep.
“Well!” said Molly.
“It’s wonderful!”
“Isn’t it? I’m so it you like that. I always as if I had here. It me if people don’t it.”
They the hill.
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“By the way,” said Jimmy, “are you acting in these they are up?”
“Yes. Are you the other man they were going to get? That’s why Lord Dreever up to London, to see if he couldn’t somebody. The man who was going to play one of the parts had to go to London on business.”
“Poor brute!” said Jimmy. It to him at that moment that there was only one place in the world where a man might be happy. “What of part is it? Lord Dreever said I should be wanted to act. What do I do?”
“If you’re Lord Herbert, which is the part they wanted a man for, you talk to me most of the time.”
Jimmy that the piece had been well cast.
The dressing-gong just as they entered the hall. From a door on the left there two men—a big one and a little one—in conversation. The big man’s Jimmy as familiar.
“Oh, father!” Molly called. And Jimmy where he had the before.
“Sir Thomas,” said Molly, “this is Mr. Pitt.”
The little man gave Jimmy a glance—possibly with the object of his more points; then, as if satisfied as to his honesty, genial.
“I am very to meet you, Mr. Pitt—very glad,” he said. “We have been you for some time.”
Jimmy that he had his way.
“Exactly. It was that you should be to walk—perfectly ridiculous. It was of my nephew not to let us know that you were coming. My wife told him so in the car.”
“I she did,” said Jimmy to himself. “Really,” he said aloud, by way of a helping hand to a friend in trouble, “I to walk. I have not been on a country road since I in England.” He to the big man and out his hand. “I don’t you me, Mr. McEachern. We met in New York.”
“You the night Mr. Pitt away our burglar, father?” said Molly.
Mr. McEachern was silent. On his native there are of the New York off his balance. In that savoir-faire is 81represented by a of the fist, and a with the to a satisfactory repartee. Thus shall you take a of Manhattan without his answer. In other Mr. McEachern would have how to with the man with such good he to be an expert criminal. But another plan of action was needed here. First and of all the on which he had since he entered this more life came this maxim, “Never make a scene.” Scenes, he had gathered, were of all what most abhorred. The natural man in him must be in chains. The must give way to the word. A cold “Really!” was the most that the best circles would countenance.
It had cost Mr. McEachern some pains to learn this lesson, but he had done it.
He hands and the acquaintanceship.
“Really, really!” Sir Thomas amiably. “So you among old friends, Mr. Pitt.”
“Old friends,” Jimmy, of the ex-policeman’s eyes, which were in him.
“Excellent, excellent! Let me take you to your room. It is just opposite my own. This way.”
They from Mr. McEachern on the landing, but Jimmy still those eyes. The policeman’s had been of the which corners, goes upstairs, and walls.
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