"I haven't been out," I ventured to contradict.
"Then you were going out—"
"And I had no intention of going out—"
"Don't answer me back like that! I won't stand it. What are you doing in your hat, done up in a thick veil, too, at this time of night, as if you were afraid of being recognized?"
I had to admit to myself that appearances were dreadfully against me. I didn't see how I could give any satisfactory explanation, and while I was fishing wildly in my brain without any bait, hoping to catch an inspiration, the chauffeur spoke for me.
"If your ladyship will permit me to explain," he began, more respectfully than I'd heard him speak to anyone yet, "it is my fault ma'mselle is dressed as she is."
"What on earth is he going to say?" I wondered wildly, as he paused an instant for Lady Turnour's consent, which perhaps an amazed silence gave. I believed that he didn't know himself what to say.
"I wanted your ladyship's maid, when she had nothing else to do, to put on her out-of-door things and let me make a sketch of her for an illustrated newspaper I sometimes draw for. Naturally she didn't care for her face to go into the paper, so she insisted upon a veil. My sketch is to be called, 'The Motor Maid,' and I shall get half a guinea for it, I hope, of which it's my intention to hand ma'mselle five shillings for obliging me. I hope your ladyship doesn't object to my earning something extra now and then, so long as it doesn't interfere with work?"
"Well," remarked Lady Turnour, taken aback by this extraordinary plea, as well she might have been, "I don't like to tell a person out and out that I don't believe a word he says, but I do go as far as this: I'll believe you when I see you making the sketch. And as for earning extra money, I should have thought Sir Samuel paid good enough wages for you to be willing to smoke a pipe and rest when your day's work was done, instead of gadding about corridors gossiping with lady's-maids who've no business to be outside their own room. But if you're so greedy after money—and if you want me to take Elise's word—"
"I'll just begin the sketch in your ladyship's presence, if I may be excused," said Mr. Dane, briskly. And to my real surprise, as well as relief, he whipped a small canvas-covered sketch-book out of his pocket. It was almost like sleight of hand, and if he'd continued the exhibition with a few live rabbits and an anaconda or two I couldn't have been much more amazed.