Part 14 (1/2)

”_Ah, Mademoiselle est Anglaise!_” the two others exclaimed, ”_Vive l'entente cordiale!_ We are Frenchmen. You are Italian. She belongs to our side.”

”Let her choose,” said the handsome Italian, pointing his moustache and doing such execution upon me with his splendid eyes, that if they'd been Maxim guns I should have fallen riddled with bullets.

”I'll sit by n.o.body,” I managed to answer, this time in French. ”Please take your seats. I will have a chair at the other end of the table.”

”You see, mademoiselle is too polite to choose between us. She's afraid of a duel,” laughed good-looking Number One. ”I tell you what we must do. We'll draw lots for her. Three pellets of bread. The biggest wins.”

”Beg your pardon, monsieur,” remarked Mr. Dane, whom I hadn't seen as he opened the door, ”mademoiselle is of my party. She is waiting for me.”

His voice was perfectly calm, even polite, but as I whirled round and looked at him, fearing a scene, I saw that his eyes were rather dangerous. He looked like a dog who says, as plainly as a dog can speak, ”I'm a good fellow, and I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. But put that bone down, or I bite.”

The Italian dropped the bone (I don't mind the simile) not because he was afraid, I think, but because Mr. John Dane's chin was much squarer and firmer than his; and because such sense of justice as he had told him that the newcomer was within his rights.

”And I beg mademoiselle's pardon,” he replied with a bow and a flourish.

”I'm so glad you've come--but I oughtn't to be, and I didn't expect you,” I said, when my chauffeur had pulled out a chair for me at the end of the table farthest from the other maids and chauffeurs.

”Why not?” he wanted to know, sitting down by my side.

”Because I suppose it's the best hotel in town, and--”

”Oh, you're thinking of my pocket! I wish I hadn't said what I did last night. Looking back, it sounds caddish. But I generally do blurt out things stupidly. If I didn't, I shouldn't be 'shuvving' now--only that's another story. To tell the whole truth, it wasn't the state of my pocketbook alone that influenced me last night. I had two other reasons.

One was a selfish one, and the other, I hope, unselfish.”

”I hope the selfish one wasn't fear of being bored?”

”If that's a question, it doesn't deserve an answer. But because you've asked it, I'll tell you both reasons. I'd stopped at La Reserve before, in--in rather different circ.u.mstances, and I thought--not only might it make talk about me, but--”

”I understand,” I said. ”Of course, Lady Turnour isn't as careful a chaperon as she ought to be.”

Then we both laughed, and the danger-signals were turned off in his eyes. When he isn't smiling, Mr. Dane sometimes looks almost sullen, quite as if he could be disagreeable if he liked; but that makes the change more striking when he does smile.

”You needn't worry about that pocket of mine,” he went on, as we ate our luncheon. ”It's as cheap here as anywhere; and when I saw all those motors before the door, I made up my mind that you'd probably need a brother, so I came as soon as I could leave the car.”

”So you are my brother, are you?” I echoed.

”Don't you think you might adopt me, once for all, in that relations.h.i.+p?

Then, you see, the chaperoning won't matter so much. Of course, it's early days to take me on as a brother, but I think we'd better begin at once.”

”Before I know whether you have any faults?” I asked. And just for the minute, the French half of me was a little piqued at his offer. That part of me pouted, and said that it would be much more amusing to travel in such odd circ.u.mstances beside a person one could flirt with, than to make a pact of ”brother and sister.” He might have given me the chance to say first that I'd be a sister to him! But the American half slapped the French half, and said: ”What silly nonsense! Don't be an idiot, if you can help it. The man's behaving beautifully. And it will just do you good to have your vanity stepped on, you conceited little minx!”

”Oh, I've plenty of faults, I'll tell you to start with--plenty you may have noticed already, and plenty more you haven't had time to notice yet,” said my new relative. ”I'm a sulky brute, for one thing, and I've got to be a pessimist lately, for another--a horrid fault, that!--and I have a vile temper--”

”All those faults might be serviceable in a _brother_,” I said. ”Though in any one else--”

”In a friend or a lover, they'd be unbearable, of course; I know that,”

he broke in. ”But who'd want me for a friend? And as for a lover, why, I'm struck off the list of eligibles, forever--if I was ever on it.”

After that, we ate our luncheon as fast as we could (a very bad habit, which I don't mean to keep up for man or brother), and even though the others had begun long before we did, we finished while they were still cracking nuts and peeling apples, their spirits somewhat subdued by the Englishman's presence.