She smiled when she got in and saw what he had done. "Thank you," she said, still in the same easy, pleasant way, a queen addressing her subject; "I chose my knight well; and now good-bye. Tell your cousin that I will send her a few lines to let her know of my safe arrival."
Arthur pressed the hand she held out to him. He could not resist it, and then, shriek! puff! the waving of a flag, and the train was gone, carrying her away from his lingering gaze. He turned aside with a sigh and a singular contraction of heart; she, looking round at his thoughtful arrangements, smiled faintly, then, leaning back on the hard seat, closed her eyes and murmured almost audibly, "Thank God! escaped!"
Her thanksgiving, perhaps, was premature, for in her late dwelling-place this was what was happening in the mean time.
She and Adèle had scarcely reached the top of —— street before the landlady, anxious to lose no time, ordered "Apartments" to be hoisted in its usual place, the front-parlor window.
A tall, dark-looking man, who was walking in a leisurely manner down the street with a cigar in his mouth, stopped suddenly and looked at it with some attention. From below the landlady looked at him, and feeling his earnestness prophetic arrayed herself hastily in clean cap and apron, and smoothed from her brow the unquiet look which Betsy's awkwardness had caused. She did not get herself up in vain; he rang the bell and asked to see her rooms.
The landlady dropped a curtsey. This was a grand-looking gentleman in her opinion, with a fine commanding manner—"looked a militairy hofficer retired," she said afterward to a neighbor, describing the interview. "They're not in the best of horder, sir," she said deprecatingly—"not for a gentleman the likes of you to see; but there," fearful of losing a lodger, "it hain't all gold as glitters, and if so be has you'll make hallowances, the lady—quite a lady and lived very quiet, not gone above half an hour—says she, a going out of that door, and a givin' me of her hand—"
"Show me the rooms as they are," broke in the gentleman, frowning with impatience; but even this did not check the flow of the landlady's eloquence.
"The lady as has gone—" she began.
"Show me the rooms, woman, without any more jabber," interrupted he so fiercely that, as Mrs. Jones said afterward to a neighbor, "she was all of a tremble, and her feet as nigh as possible giv' way under her from fright."
She did not hazard another remark, but threw open the door of Margaret's sitting-room, still warm, as it were, with the evidences of her presence. The sight appeared to excite the gentleman; he breathed hard and his eyes sparkled; then, not appearing to notice the landlady, who stood respectfully in the doorway, he cast round the room one searching glance.