“I asked your father if there was anybody of the old name in France and he said he didn’t think so. He said he understood from his grandfather that the name would die with him. It had already become Breezy in England. Somehow or other, I think this is rather strange.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Lola. “You see these famous names are never allowed to die right out. This Madame de Brézé is probably an actress who is just using the name to suit herself. It has a good ring to it.”
“That may be so, and it’s true that actresses help themselves to any name that takes their fancy. You, I remember, when you threatened to go into the chorus, talked about claiming relationship with Madame de Brézé.” And again she darted a sharp look at Lola.
“I have the right to do that,” said Lola quietly, but with a very rapid pulse.
“Well, sometimes I go out of my way to satisfy a whim. It so happens that I have a friend in the detective department at Scotland Yard. I’ve asked him to keep his eye open for me and let me know what he finds out. As soon as he comes to me with any definite information, I’ll share it with you, Lola, you may be sure.”
“Oh, thank you, Auntie. That’s very kind of you.”
But being unable to force back a tide of color that swept slowly over her, Lola opened a drawer in the dressing table and began to put back the various implements that she had used upon her mistress and herself. To think of it! It was likely, then, that she was to be watched in future and that presently, perhaps, the story of her harmless adventures would become the property of her aunt and her parents, of Treadwell and Simpkins, and that the detective, whom she could picture with a toothbrush moustache and flat feet, would one day march into the rooms of General Sir Peter Chalfont and say to him, “Do you know that your friend Madame de Brézé is a lady’s maid in the employment of the wife of Mr. Fallaray?”
With the peculiar satisfaction of one who has succeeded in making some one else extraordinarily uncomfortable, Miss Breezy gathered herself together, scrambled out of the chair which might have belonged to a dentist and left the room like an elderly peahen who had done her duty by the world.
And then, having locked the door, Lola returned to the dressing table. “Detective or no detective, I shall dine at the Carlton to-night,” she said to herself. “You see if I don’t.”