They crossed over the little channel without a word, and without a word made their way up to the railway-station. Lady Ongar had been too confused to get tickets for their journey at Yarmouth, but had paid on board the boat for the passage of the three persons—herself, her maid, and Sophie. But, at the station at Lymington, the more important business of taking tickets for the journey to London became necessary. Lady Ongar had thought of this on her journey across the water, and, when at the railway-station, gave her purse to her maid, whispering her orders. The girl took three first-class tickets, and then going gently up to Madame Gordeloup, offered one to that lady. "Ah, yes; very well; I understand," said Sophie, taking the ticket. "I shall take this;" and she held the ticket up in her hand, as though she had some specially mysterious purpose in accepting it.
She got into the same carriage with Lady Ongar and her maid, but spoke no word on her journey up to London. At Basingstoke she had a glass of sherry, for which Lady Ongar's maid paid. Lady Ongar had telegraphed for her carriage, which was waiting for her, but Sophie betook herself to a cab. "Shall I pay the cabman, ma'am?" said the maid. "Yes," said Sophie, "or stop. It will be half-a-crown. You had better give me the half-crown." The maid did so, and in this way the careful Sophie added another shilling to her store,—over and above the twenty pounds,—knowing well that the fare to Mount Street was eighteen-pence.
CHAPTER XXX.
DOODLES IN MOUNT STREET.
Captain Clavering and Captain Boodle had, as may be imagined, discussed at great length and with much frequency the results of the former captain's negotiations with the Russian spy, and it had been declared strongly by the latter captain, and ultimately admitted by the former, that those results were not satisfactory. Seventy pounds had been expended, and, so to say, nothing had been accomplished. It was in vain that Archie, unwilling to have it thought that he had been worsted in diplomacy, argued that with these political personages, and especially with Russian political personages, the ambages were everything,—that the preliminaries were in fact the whole, and that when they were arranged, the thing was done. Doodles proved to demonstration that the thing was not done, and that seventy pounds was too much for mere preliminaries. "My dear fellow," he said, speaking I fear with some scorn in his voice, "where are you? That's what I want to know. Where are you? Just nowhere." This was true. All that Archie had received from Madame Gordeloup in return for his last payment, was an intimation that no immediate day could be at present named for a renewal of his personal attack upon the countess; but that a day might be named when he should next come to Mount Street,—provision, of course, being made that he should come with a due qualification under his glove. Now the original basis on which Archie was to carry on his suit had been arranged to be this,—that Lady Ongar should be made to know that he was there; and the way in which Doodles had illustrated this precept by the artistic and allegorical use of his heel was still fresh in Archie's memory. The meeting in which they had come to that satisfactory understanding had taken place early in the spring, and now June was coming on, and the countess certainly did not as yet know that her suitor was there! If anything was to be done by the Russian spy it should be done quickly, and Doodles did not refrain from expressing his opinion that his friend was "putting his foot into it," and "making a mull of the whole thing." Now Archie Clavering was a man not eaten up by the vice of self-confidence, but prone rather to lean upon his friends and anxious for the aid of counsel in difficulty.
"What the devil is a fellow to do?" he asked. "Perhaps I had better give it all up. Everybody says that she is as proud as Lucifer; and, after all, nobody knows what rigs she has been up to."
But this was by no means the view which Doodles was inclined to take. He was a man who in the field never gave up a race because he was thrown out at the start, having perceived that patience would achieve as much, perhaps, as impetuosity. He had ridden many a waiting race, and had won some of them. He was never so sure of his hand at billiards as when the score was strong against him. "Always fight whilst there's any fight left in you," was a maxim with him. He never surrendered a bet as lost, till the evidence as to the facts was quite conclusive, and had taught himself to regard any chance, be it ever so remote, as a kind of property.
"Never say die," was his answer to Archie's remark. "You see, Clavvy, you have still a few good cards, and you can never know what a woman really means till you have popped yourself. As to what she did when she was away, and all that, you see when a woman has got seven thousand a year in her own right, it covers a multitude of sins."
"Of course, I know that."