Lottie took another draught of the stout, and her color came and went.
"It was when I was singing at the South Audley Music Hall. I wasn't much of a singer, then, and one night I sang worse than usual; I was ill too, and out of sorts, and the people—they aren't the most refined at the South Audley, you know—they cut up rough, and began to hiss and shout. I was only a slip of a girl, and I got frightened—too frightened to run off, and one brute of a fellow took up a wineglass from one of the tables, and flung it at me. I suppose I must have fainted, for the next thing I remember was finding myself in a young gentleman's arms. It was Lord Blair. He'd sprung on the stage, and caught me, and I shall never forget, till the day of my death, the look on his face as he looked down at them. 'I'll give a sovereign to anyone who'll keep that fellow in the hall till I come back!' he said, and though he didn't shout it, you could hear his voice all over the hall. Then he carried me into the greenroom, and got me some wine, and put me into a cab, as if I was a lady! Just as if I was a lady, mind! Then he went back to the hall, and it was a bad time for that brute with the glass, I expect."
She paused a minute and caught her lip between her teeth.
"We didn't meet again for three or four years, and he didn't know me. I was a woman, then, and he had grown into a man. I dare say he'd forgotten all about the girl he protected at the South Audley, and I didn't remind him. But I haven't forgotten it. No!" and she made an impatient dash at her eyes, as if ashamed of the moisture which had made them suddenly dim.
Austin Ambrose listened and watched.
"That's like Blair," he said. "He's a good fellow."
"A good fellow!" she exclaimed, almost fiercely; "that's what you say of any man who is free with his money and can make himself pleasant. Blair is more than that; he's—he's—" she paused for want of a word, then wound up emphatically, "he's a gentleman!"
"Too good a gentleman to be wasted on Miss Margaret Hale!" said Austin Ambrose, insidiously.
"Yes!" she assented, as fiercely as before. "What is to be done? I suppose you have got some plan? You generally have your wits about you." She paused a moment. "But why are you so keen about this business?" she inquired, suspiciously.