Part 23 (1/2)

The bed moved. The veins stood out on my neck and temples. My face must have been quite purple, and it is a hue that I detest. When I was a very small laddie my mother put me forward to be admired in purple velveteen. The horror of it still lingers.

By means of great straining I got the heavy bed over against the mirror, upsetting the tin bathtub with a crash that under ordinary circ.u.mstances would have made my heart stand still but now only tripled its pumping activities. One of the legs was hopelessly splintered in the drop from the raised platform.

”There,” she said, standing off to survey our joint achievement, ”we've stopped it up very nicely.” She brushed the tips of her fingers daintily. ”This afternoon you may fetch up a hammer and some nails and fasten the mirror permanently. Then you can move the bed back to its proper place. Goodness! What a narrow squeak!”

”Madam,” said I, my hand on my heart but not through gallantry, ”that bed stays where it is. Not all the king's horses nor all the king's men can put it back again.”

”Was it so heavy, Mr. Smart?”

I swallowed very hard. A prophetic crick already had planted itself in my back. ”Will you forgive me if I submit that you sleep quite a distance from home?” I remarked with justifiable irony. ”Why the deuce don't you stay on the upper floors?”

”Because I am mortally afraid,” she said, with a little shudder. ”You've no idea how lonely, how spooky it is up there at the dead hour of night. I couldn't sleep. After the third night I had my things moved down here, where I could at least feel that there were strong men within--you might say arm's length of me. I'm--I'm shockingly timid.”

She smiled; a wavering, pleading little smile that conquered.

”Of course, I don't mind, Countess,” I hastened to say. ”Only I thought it would be cosier up there with Rosemary and the two maids for company.”

She leaned a little closer to me. ”We all sleep down here,” she said confidentially. ”We bring Rosemary's little mattress down every night and put it in the bathtub. It is a very good fit and makes quite a nice cradle for her. Helene and Blake sleep just across the hall and we leave the doors wide open. So, you see, we're not one bit afraid.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed.

”This is delicious,” I cried, not without compunction for I was looking directly into her eager, wistful eyes. A shadow crossed them. ”I beg your pardon. I--I can't help laughing.”

”Pray do not stop laughing on my account,” she said icily. ”I am used to being laughed at since I left America. They laugh at all of us over here.”

”I dare say they laugh at me, confound them,” said I, lugubriously.

”They do,” said she flatly. Before I could quite recover from this sentient dig, she was ordering me to put the bathtub where it belonged.

This task completed, I looked up. She was standing near the head of the bed, with a revolver in her hand. I stared. ”I keep it under my pillow, Mr. Smart,” she said nervously. I said nothing, and she replaced it under the pillow, handling the deadly weapon as gingerly as if it were the frailest gla.s.s. ”Of course I couldn't hit anything with it, and I know I should scream when it went off, but still--accidents will happen, you know.”

”Urn!” said I, judicially. ”And so my study is just beyond this mirror, eh? May I enquire how you happen to know that I have my study there?”

”Oh, I peeked in the other day,” she said, serene once more.

”The deuce you did!”

”I was quite sure that you were out,” she explained. ”I opened Ludwig the Red an inch or two, that's all. You are quite cosy in there, aren't you? I envy you the grand old _chaise longe_.”

I wavered, but succeeded in subduing the impulse. ”It is the only comfortable piece of furniture I have left in my apartments,” said I, with convincing candour.

”You poor man,” she said, with her rarest smile. ”How fortunate you are that I did not remember the chaise longe. You would have been deprived of it, I am quite sure. Of course I couldn't think of robbing you of it now.”

”As a matter of fact, I never lie in it,” I said, submitting to a once conquered impulse. ”If you'd really like to have it, I'll see that it is taken up to your rooms at once.”

”Thank you,” she said, shaking her head. ”It's kind of you, but I am not so selfish as all that, believe me.”

”It is--quite in the way, Countess.”

”Some one would be sure to miss it if you sent it up now,” she said reflectively.

”We'll wait till they're all gone,” said I.