Part 23 (1/2)

In a book, of course (a proper book, I mean), I ought to have asked Ciss all sorts of questions, and said that in everything which did not affect the honor of the house of Picton Smith I was at her service. And so on.

But of course ordinary girls don't talk like that now-a-days. If you have what our sweet Maid calls a ”snarl” against anybody--why, mostly every one plays hockey now, and it is the simplest thing in the world to ”take a drive at her s.h.i.+ns, and say how sorry you are afterwards”! So at least (the Maid informs me) some girls, who shall be nameless, have been known to do at her school.

I waited for Cissy to tell me of the dreadfully mean thing she had done.

But of course I a.s.sured her first that, whatever it was--yes, _whatever_--I should do just what she wanted done to help her. For I knew she would do the same for me.

Then she told me that in her first anger about the telegram--for she had been far more angry about that than about the sending back the other half of the crooked sixpence--a thing which really mattered a thousand times more (but of course that was exactly like a girl!)--she had put the telegram, and both parts of the crooked sixpence, and all of Hugh John's letters she could find--chiefly the short and simple annals of a Rugby ”forward”--in a lozenge-box--and (here Cissy dropped her voice) _sent them all, registered, to Elizabeth Fortinbras_!

XXV

”NOT EVEN HUGH JOHN!”

”To Elizabeth--Elizabeth Fortinbras!” I cried. Here was a new difficulty. If only people would not do things in a hurry, as Hugh John says, they would mostly end by not doing them at all!

”What sort of a girl is this Elizabeth Fortinbras?” Cissy Carter asked.

”She is only a shop-girl after all, isn't she?”

I set Cissy right on this head. There were shop-girls _and_ shop-girls.

And this one not only came of a respectable ancestry, but had been well educated, was the heiress of Erin Villa, and would succeed to one of the best businesses in Edam!

”Is she pretty?”

Oh, of course I had foreseen the question. It was quite inevitable, and there was but one thing to say--

”Come to the shop and see for yourself!”

But Cissy hung back. You see, she had done a perfectly mad thing, and yet was not quite ready to make it up with the person concerned--especially when Cissy was Colonel Davenant Carter's only daughter just home from Paris, and when, in spite of my explanations, Elizabeth was little more to her than a ”girl behind a counter”!

You may be sure that I put her duty before her--yes, plainly and with point. But Cissy had in her all the pride of the Davenant Carters, and go she would not, till I told her plump and plain that she was afraid!

My, how that made her jump! She turned a little pale, rose quietly, adjusted her hat at the mirror, took off her watch-bracelet and gave it to me to keep for her.

”I will go and see this Elizabeth Fortinbras now--and alone!” she said, with that nice quiet dignity which became her so well. I would greatly have liked to have gone along with her. But, first of all, she had not asked me, and, secondly, I knew that I had better not.

Cissy Carter had to see Elizabeth alone. Only they could arrange matters. Still, of course, both of them told me all about it afterwards, and it is from these two narratives that the following short account is written out.

Elizabeth was in the front shop, busy as a bee among the sweet things, white-ap.r.o.ned, and wearing dainty white armlets of linen which came from the wrist to above the elbow. Then these two looked at each other as only girls do--or perhaps more exactly, attractive young women of about the same age. Boys are different--they behave just like strange dogs on being introduced, sulky and ready to snarl. A young man seems to be wondering how such a contemptible fellow as that other fellow could possibly have gained admittance to a respectable house. Only experienced women can manage the business properly, putting just the proper amount of cordiality into the bow and handshake. Grown men--most of them, that is--allow their natural feeling of boredom to appear too obviously.

At any rate Cissy and Elizabeth took in each other at a glance, far more searching and exhaustive as to ”points” than ever any man's could be.

Then they bowed to each other very coldly.

”Will you come this way?” said Elizabeth, instantly discerning that Cissy had not come to New Erin Villa as a customer. Accordingly she led the way into the little sitting-room, all in pale creamy _cretonne_ with old-fas.h.i.+oned roses scattered upon it, which her own taste and the full purse of Ex-Butcher Donnan had provided for her.

”Be good enough to take a seat,” said Elizabeth Fortinbras. But she herself remained standing.

Now you never can tell by which end a girl--or a woman, for that matter--will tackle anything. All that you can be sure of is that it will not be the obvious and natural one--the one nearest her hand. So Cissy, instead of coming right out with her confession and having done with it, began by asking Elizabeth if she knew a Mr. Hugh John Picton Smith.