Part 48 (1/2)

”Your mother is here,” I remarked hurriedly.

She glanced toward my bedroom door.

”Oh, what a night!” she sighed. ”I did all that I could to keep her out of your bed. It was useless. I _did_ cry, Mr. Smart. I know you must hate all of us.”

I laughed. ”'Love thy neighbour as thyself,'” I quoted. ”You are my neighbour, Countess; don't forget that. And it so happens that your mother is also my neighbour at present, and your brothers too. Have you any cousins and aunts?”

”I can't understand how any one can be so good-natured as you,” she sighed.

The crown of her head was on a level with my shoulder. Her eyes were lowered; a faint line of distress grew between them. For a minute I stared down at the brown crest of her head, an almost ungovernable impulse pounding away at my sense of discretion. I do take credit unto myself for being strong enough to resist that opportunity to make an everlasting idiot of myself. I knew, even then, that if a similar attack ever came upon me again I should not be able to withstand it.

It was too much to expect of mortal man. Angels might survive the test, but not wingless man.

All this time she was staring rather pensively at the second b.u.t.ton from the top of p.o.o.pend.y.k.e's coat, and so prolonged and earnest was her gaze that I looked down in some concern, at the same time permitting myself to make a nervous, jerky and quite involuntary digital examination of the aforesaid b.u.t.ton. She looked up with a nervous little laugh.

”I shall have to sew one on right there for poor Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e,” she said, poking her finger into the empty b.u.t.tonhole. ”You dear bachelors!”

Then she turned swiftly away from me, and glided over to the big armchair, from the depths of which she fished a small velvet bag.

Looking over her shoulder, she smiled at me.

”Please look the other way,” she said. Without waiting for me to do so, she took out a little gold box, a powder puff, and a stick of lip rouge. Crossing to the small Florentine mirror that hung near my desk, she proceeded, before my startled eyes, to repair the slight--and to me unnoticeable--damage that had been done to her complexion before the sun came up.

”Woman works in a mysterious way, my friend, her wonders to perform,”

she paraphrased calmly.

”No matter how transcendently beautiful woman may be, she always does that sort of thing to herself, I take it,” said I.

”She does,” said the Countess with conviction. She surveyed herself critically. ”There! And now I am ready to accept an invitation to breakfast. I am disgustingly hungry.”

”And so am I!” I cried with enthusiasm. ”Hurray! You shall eat p.o.o.pend.y.k.e's breakfast, just to penalise him for failing in his duties as host during my unavoidable--”

”Quite impossible,” she said. ”He has already eaten it.”

”He has?”

”At half-past six, I believe. He announced at that unG.o.dly hour that if he couldn't have his coffee the first thing in the morning he would be in for a headache all day. He suggested that I take a little nap and have breakfast with you--if you succeeded in surviving the night.”

”Oh, I see,” said I slowly. ”He knew all the time that you were napping in that chair, eh?”

”You shall not scold him!”

”I shall do even worse than that. I shall pension him for life.”

She appeared thoughtful. A little frown' of annoyance clouded her brow.

”He promised faithfully to arouse me the instant you were sighted on the opposite side of the river. I made him stand in the window with a field gla.s.s. No, on second thought, _I_ shall scold him. If he had come to the door and shouted, you wouldn't have caught me in this odious dressing-gown. Helene--”

”It is most fascinating,” I cried. ”Adorable! I love flimsy, pink things. They're so intimate. And p.o.o.pend.y.k.e knows it, bless his ingenuous old soul.”

I surprised a queer little gleam of inquiry in her eyes. It flickered for a second and died out.

”Do you really consider him an ingenuous old soul?” she asked. And I thought there was something rather metallic in her voice. I might have replied with intelligence if she had given me a chance, but for some reason she chose to drop the subject. ”You _must_ be famished, and I am dying to hear about your experiences. You must not omit a single detail.