"Well he will. He's all right. He's not a fool. I'm taking him with me into some big things; so that if it's the money you're in doubt about—"
I had recovered myself enough to say:
"Oh no; not at all. But if you're in his confidence I beg you to ask him to think no more about it. I'm engaged—or practically engaged—I may say that I'm engaged—to Hugh Brokenshire."
"I see. Then you're making a mistake."
I was moving away from him by this time so that I gave him a little smile.
"If so, the circumstances are such that—that I must go on making it."
"For God's sake don't!" he called after me.
"Oh, but I must," I returned, and so we went our ways.
On going back to our rooms I found poor, dear little Mrs. Brokenshire packing a small straw suit-case. She had selected it as the only thing she could carry in her hand to the place of the enlèvement. She was not a packer; she was not an adept in secrecy. As I entered her room she looked at me with the pleading, guilty eyes of a child detected in the act of stealing sweets, and confessing before he is accused.
I saw nothing, of course. I saw nothing that night. I saw nothing the next day. Each one of her helpless, unskilful moves was so plain to me that I could have wept; but I was turning over in my mind what I could do to let her know she was deceived. I was reproaching myself, too, for being so treacherous a confidante. All the great love-heroines had an attendant like me, who bewailed and lamented the steps their mistresses were taking, and yet lent a hand. Here I was, the nurse to this Juliet, the Brangaene to this Isolde, but acting as a counter-agent to all romantic schemes. I cannot say I admired myself; but what was I to do?