III
The Honourable Reginald Fitznorton was due back at four o'clock next afternoon. The motor was ordered round, and Pip drove Lottie to the station to meet him. Lottie, who was looking pale and not quite herself, declined to sit in the tonneau, and accompanied Pip on the front seat. In spite of the facilities for conversation afforded by this position she said little; and Pip, whose repertory of conversational openings was not extensive, said nothing at all. Besides, he was not certain whether he was to be treated to-day as a big brother or as a chauffeur.
Had he been a more observant big brother or a less diligent chauffeur he might have noticed that from time to time he was being favoured by his mistress with a sidelong scrutiny of some intensity. Being Pip, he saw nothing. One act of hers might have afforded him a good deal of information had he desired it. When the car, which had started late, rounded the last corner on the way to the station, there appeared in the offing no less a person than the Honourable himself, bag in hand, and diffusing happiness around him. Suddenly Pip became conscious of something. The girl at his side seemed to shrink up to him, and for a moment her hand travelled towards his as if for protection. An instant later she was leaning back in her seat, smilingly dipping an answering pennant to the frenzied signals of her rapidly approaching swain.
The car slowed down to a stop. Miss Lottingar stepped out, and was received by her enraptured lover, regardless of Pip's presence, with a smacking salute that fairly drowned the noise of the engine. After that the happy couple entered the tonneau, and Pip, with eyes rigidly turned to the front, heard little and saw nothing of them throughout the drive home.
As the Principal Boy had confidently predicted, the Right Honourable the Earl of Cartavon arrived at Broadoak Manor at lunch-time next day. The inmates of that venerable pile were ready for him. Howard, looking like a retired archbishop, received him at the door, and Captain Lottingar, in tweeds and gaiters, greeted him in the library. His lordship was affably informed that, in consequence of recent surprising and joyful disclosures by the young folk, his visit was not altogether unexpected; and that if he would join the house-party at luncheon, the business on which he had come down might be comfortably discussed over a cigar in the library afterwards.
This much was retailed in the servants' hall by Howard, whose well-formed ears had missed little or nothing of the dialogue in the library, even in a filtered form. Mr. Briggs opined, amid general approval, that "the Captain and the gal between them could bleed the old toff proper."
After lunch the Honourable emerged from the front door, armed only with a walking-stick, and set out briskly, apparently on a country walk. At the same time word was sent to Pip that the motor would be required at three.
Punctually to time he ran the car up the broad avenue, passing the library windows on the way. He was conscious of a group of three round the fire,—it was a chilly day in late September,—and he wondered how the process of bleeding was getting on.
The car and its driver stood before the front door for more than an hour. It was after four when the front door suddenly opened, and Lottie, banging it behind her, hurriedly descended the steps. She slipped up beside Pip.
"Start off," she said—"quick!"
Pip got down and set the engine going.
"Where to?" he inquired.
"Anywhere!" said Lottie in a choking voice, "anywhere! But get started."
Pip sprang up into his place and took the wheel. The great car ceased vibrating and began to creep forward. Suddenly it gave a mighty plunge, and sped down the avenue.
At the same moment Captain Lottingar, looking anything but a country gentleman, and furiously angry, threw open the library window and bawled to Pip to stop. But the louder he bawled and the more thoroughly he blasphemed the faster the car shot down the drive.
Lord Cartavon sat stiffly in a high-backed chair by the fire.
"I shouldn't trouble if I were you, Captain—er—Lottingar," he said. "She won't come back."
Captain Lottingar banged down the window, and, returning to his favourite position on the hearthrug, summed up his daughter's character in terms which would have been excessive if applied to Jezebel herself.
The Earl stood up.
"Sir," he said, "I am obliged to you for your hospitality. I will walk to the station now, and catch the five-thirty train back to town. I presume, after what has just happened, that we may regard this incident as closed. And let me tell you, Mr. Lottingar," the old gentleman added, turning on his heel as he opened the door, "that Miss Lottingar is a d——d sight too good a daughter for such a shark as yourself."
After he had gone, Captain Lottingar kicked a valuable Japanese fire-screen (for which he had not paid) round the room.