"Now I begin to realize that you are—your mother's daughter," said he, in a queer, hard tone. "No, I won't refuse the first thing you ask me. But perhaps you'd better not consider that a precedent."
"I won't," said I. He'd been looking so pleased with me before, as if he'd found me in a prize package, or won me in a lottery when he'd expected to draw a blank; but though he gave in without a struggle to my wheedling, he now looked as if he'd discovered that I was stuffed with sawdust. My quick, "I won't," didn't seem to encourage him a bit.
"Well," he said, in a duller tone, "we'll get out of this. It was very kind of you to come and meet me. I see now I oughtn't to have asked it; but to tell the truth, the thought of going to a girls' school, and claiming you——"
"I quite understand," I nipped in. "This is much better. My luggage is all here," I added. "I couldn't think where else to send it, as I didn't know what your plans might be."
At that he looked annoyed again, but luckily, only with himself this time. "I fear I am an ass where women's affairs are concerned," he said. "Of course I ought to have thought about your luggage, and settled every detail for you with Madame de Maluet, instead of trusting to her discretion. Still, it does seem as if she——"
I wouldn't let him blame Madame; but I couldn't defend her without risking danger for Ellaline and myself, because Madame's arrangements were all perfect, if we hadn't secretly upset them. "I have so little luggage," I broke in, trying to make up with emphasis for irrelevancy. "And Madame considers me quite a grown-up person, I assure you."
"I suppose you are," he admitted, observing my inches with a worried air. "I ought to have realized; but somehow or other I expected to find a child."
"I shall be less bother to you than if I were a child," I consoled him.
This did make him smile again, for some reason, as he replied that he wasn't sure. And we were starting to hook ourselves on to the tail end of the dwindling procession, quite on friendly terms, when to my horror that young English cadlet—or boundling, which you will—strolled calmly out in front of us, and said, "How do you do, Sir Lionel Pendragon? I'm afraid you don't remember me. Dick Burden. Anyhow, you'll recollect my mother and aunt."
I had forgotten all about the creature, dearest; but there he had been lurking, ready to pounce. And what bad luck that he should know Ellaline's guardian, wasn't it?