EVE BORROWS AN UMBRELLA
W
HAT the visitor to London most forcibly, as he enters the of that city’s shopping district, is the almost entire of in the shop-windows, the of display. About the of the of Messrs. Thorpe & Briscoe, for instance, who sell in Dover Street, there is as a nothing to attention. You might give the place a as you passed, but you would not pause and at it as at the Sistine Chapel or the Taj Mahal. Yet at ten-thirty on the after Eve Halliday had taken tea with her friend Phyllis Jackson in West Kensington, Psmith, in the smoking-room window of the Drones Club, which is opposite the Thorpe & Briscoe establishment, had been at it for a full five minutes. One would have said that the him. He unable to take his off it.
There is always a for the most happenings. It is the of Thorpe (or Briscoe) the months of to out an over the shop. A quiet, awning, of course, nothing to the eye—but an which offers a protection against those which are such a of the English summer: one of which had just to the West End of London with a good of and vigour. And under this awning, out at the rain, Eve Halliday, on her way to the Ada Clarkson Employment Bureau, had taken refuge. It was she who had so Psmith’s interest. It was his opinion that she the Thorpe & Briscoe by about ninety-five cent.
Pleased and as Psmith was to have something to look at out of the smoking-room window, he was also puzzled. This girl to him to an of wealth. Starting at south and northward, she in a of patent-leather shoes. Fawn stockings, expensive, up to a black crêpe frock. And then, just as the was to that there be nothing more, it was by a of soft, with a black bird of Paradise over the left shoulder. Even to the eye, which is to in these matters, a of a hat. And yet this woman had been by a of rain the of Messrs. Thorpe & Briscoe. Why, Psmith asked himself, was this? Even, he argued, if Charles the had been the day off or was her father the to the City to to his interests, she surely a cab-fare? We, who are familiar with the of Eve’s finances, can her to take cabs, but Psmith was perplexed.
Being, however, ready-witted and chivalrous, he that this was no time for speculation. His not to why; his was to take steps to Beauty in distress. He left the window of the smoking-room, and, having his way with a to the club’s cloak-room, to submit a of to a close inspection. He was not easy to satisfy. Two which he so as to out of the he returned with a shake of the head. Quite good umbrellas, but not fit for this special service. At length, however, he a beauty, and a across his face. He put up his and at this umbrella. It to answer every test. He was well pleased with it.
“Whose,” he of the attendant, “is this?”
“Belongs to the Honourable Mr. Walderwick, sir.”
“Ah!” said Psmith tolerantly.
He the under his arm and out.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Eve Halliday, up the of Messrs. Thorpe & Briscoe’s shop-front, to think hard of the English and to the sky in the of a spot of blue. She was in this when at her a voice spoke.
“Excuse me!”
A man was her, an umbrella. He was a striking-looking man, very tall, very thin, and very well dressed. In his right there was a monocle, and through this he looked at her with a friendliness. He said nothing further, but, taking her fingers, them the of the umbrella, which he had opened, and then with a to with long across the road, through the of a which, from the number of men who had gone in and out her vigil, she had set as a of some sort.
A good many had to Eve since she had come to live in London, but nothing so as this. For minutes she where she was without moving, round-eyed at the opposite. The was, however, ended. The man did not reappear. He did not himself at the window. The had him up. And Eve, that this was not the of day on which to if they from heaven, out from under the awning, laughing helplessly, and started to her to Miss Clarkson’s.
* * * * *
The offices of the Ada Clarkson International Employment Bureau (“Promptitude—Courtesy—Intelligence”) are at the top of Shaftesbury Avenue, a little way past the Palace Theatre. Eve, the umbrella, which had a spot of rain on her hat, the leading to the door and on the window marked “Enquiries.”
“Can I see Miss Clarkson?”
“What name, please?” Enquiries and with courtesy.
“Miss Halliday.”
Brief interlude, with speaking-tube.
“Will you go into the private office, please,” said Enquiries a moment later, in a voice which now added respect to the other qualities, for she had had time to and the hat.
Eve passed in through the waiting-room with its magazine-covered table, and at the door marked “Private.”
“Eve, dear!” Miss Clarkson the moment she had entered, “I don’t know how to tell you, but I have been looking through my books and I have nothing, nothing. There is not a single place that you possibly take. What is to be done?”
“That’s all right, Clarkie.”
“But . . .”
“I didn’t come to talk business. I came to ask after Cynthia. How is she?”
Miss Clarkson sighed.
“Poor child, she is still in a state, and no wonder. No news at all from her husband. He has her.”
“Poor darling! Can’t I see her?”
“Not at present. I have her to go to Brighton for a day or two. I think the sea air will her up. So much than about in a London hotel. She is on the eleven o’clock train. I gave her your love, and she was most that you should have your old and be sorry for her in her affliction.”
“Well, I can to her. Where is she staying?”
“I don’t know her Brighton address, but no the Cadogan Hotel would letters. I think she would be to from you, dear.”
Eve looked sadly at the which the wall. She was not often melancholy, but it was such a of a day and all her friends to be having such a time.
“Oh, Clarkie,” she said, “what a of trouble there is in the world!”
“Yes, yes!” Miss Clarkson, a on this subject.
“All the you and all the girls you like best come croppers. Poor little Phyllis! weren’t you sorry for her?”
“But her husband, surely, is most devoted?”
“Yes, but she’s hard up, and you how she used to be at school. Of course, it must me people for having no money. But somehow other people’s hard-upness always so much than mine. Especially old Phyl’s, she isn’t fit to it. I’ve been used to being all my life. Poor dear father always to be an article against time, with at the door.” Eve laughed, but her were misty. “He was a brick, wasn’t he? I mean, sending me to a first-class like Wayland House when he often hadn’t money to tobacco, angel. I he wasn’t always up to time with fees, was he?”
“Well, my dear, of I was only an at Wayland House and had nothing to do with the financial side, but I did sometimes. . .”
“Poor father! Do you know, one of my recollections—I couldn’t have been more than ten—is of a ring at the front-door and father like a seal under the sofa and his out and me in a voice to the fort. I to the door and an man with a paper. I so and that he not only away but actually me on the and gave me a penny. And when the door had father out from under the sofa and gave me twopence, making in all—a good morning’s work. I father a diamond ring with it at a shop the street, I remember. At least I it was a diamond. They may have me, for I was very young.”
“You have had a hard life, dear.”
“Yes, but hasn’t it been a lark! I’ve loved every minute of it. Besides, you can’t call me one of the tenth. Uncle Thomas left me a hundred and fifty a year, and I’m not allowed to touch the capital. If only there were no or safety in the world, I should be opulent. . . . But I mustn’t keep you any longer, Clarkie dear. I the waiting-room is full of who want cooks and cooks who want dukes, all and how much longer you’re going to keep them. Good-bye, darling.”
And, having Miss Clarkson and her hat, which the other’s had disarranged, Eve left the room.
