Loveland was instructed to meet the two ladies at the train, and receive his railway ticket, having seen his friends off for Chicago; and at noon of the day after her surprise visit to the theatre, Miss Dearmer's newly appointed chauffeur was waiting for his employer at the Ashville station.
In his hand was the battered bag which had called forth the contempt of Jack Jacobus, and in his heart were shame, rebellion, jealousy, and joy, mingled with several other emotions, none of which he could have defined—least of all the joy.
He reminded himself that there could now be no possible satisfaction in his nearness to Lesley. She did not like him enough to believe in him. She had practically admitted that she accepted the estimate of strangers, and the circumstantial evidence which made him seem a fraud. She had not denied her engagement to Sidney Cremer, whose servant Loveland had pledged himself to be, and she even showed—or Val imagined it—a mischievous pleasure in the situation. She had not had the grace to say, "I know this is all horrid, and humiliating to you. I'm sorry, and will try to help you make the best of it."
Why should she say so, indeed, when she believed him to be no better than an adventurer, punished for a mean attempt at deceiving? Regarded from that point of view, he ought to be grateful to Miss Dearmer for trusting him far enough to take him on as a chauffeur. But he was not grateful. He thought that, on the contrary, he was very angry; yet he was not quite sure. And if he were angry, it was a strange kind of anger that he felt.
He had to wait for some time on the platform before Miss Dearmer appeared, and then she came towards him alone.
"Auntie is saying goodbye to our Ashville friends," she explained. "I—they're not going to stop with us till the train goes. I thought for several reasons it would be better not, and they quite understand. Before you meet my aunt, I want a little talk with you. I haven't told her, or the others, that you—that there's any connection between you and the newspaper story about—the Marquis and his adventures."
"Thank you. That was considerate," said Val, somewhat sarcastically. "What have you told Mrs. Loveland, then?"
"That's what I want to talk with you about. I said I'd met you before, and was sorry to find now that you'd had misfortunes, losing your money, and other things that had put you into an uncomfortable position. Auntie was in her stateroom on board ship till the last morning, and then I didn't point you out to her. If she saw you at all, she didn't notice you particularly, and besides she's very near sighted. If there'd been any danger of her recognising you, she would have done so at the theatre last night, when you were playing 'Lord Bob.' She knows only that you're Mr. Gordon, and that to help you a little, I've asked you to act as chauffeur for a short time, till you can get something better."
"And till Mr. Cremer can get someone better," Loveland capped her words.
"You have to be tried first," smiled the girl, "before we can tell whether you're good, better—or best. Meanwhile Aunt Barbara's just trusting me. She always does, for she's used to what she calls my funny ways, and she's found out that there's some sense in them. My experiments generally turn out successes."