After satisfying herself that no one of these was signed by Lyveden, Valerie tossed them aside unread. Then she propped herself on her elbow and poured out a cup of tea.
That Fate buffets her favourites is sometimes true. Here we catch the baggage red-handed. With one cold relentless palm she threatens to take from Anthony, who hath not, even that which he hath: with the other she is strewing blossoms upon what is to be his path. With her right hand she robs the beggar, with the left she prepares for him a bed of roses.
The lady of Anthony's heart loved him. It is no good beating about the bush. Pity may be akin to Love, but Interest is the boy's first cousin. Whether her heart had leaped, when she saw him, is not for me to say. She looked upon him, saw that he was good, made up her mind—and that was settled. The fact that she immediately turned her back upon him has nothing to do with the question, but may, if you please, be construed as confirming her plight.
Had the round world been ten thousand years younger, when she and Anthony looked the one upon the other in the garden of The Leather Bottel, he would have put his arms about her, and she would have suffered him, and there in the shadow of the little inn this tale would have come to an end. That it did not so end then and there is the fault partly of a crop of conventions, which have in so many years increased out of all belief and now stand bristling between Impulse and Action, and partly of the contrariness of women, which is, we know, very ancient, but not so old as all that. It is these two marplots, which you must bless or curse, gentlemen, as the fancy takes you.
Valerie French, then, was trying to bring Lyveden into smooth water. She had already earmarked a congenial billet at The Shrubbery, Hawthorne. The difficulty was to make Anthony apply for the post. Since Mrs. Bumble could hardly be advised to ask a footman to quit the service of the Marquess of Banff, Valerie, who was determined to remain incognito, had recourse to the Press. Her advertisement for a gentleman-footman appeared daily.
When my lady had drunk her tea, she turned to the telephone. After a little delay, she was connected to the Dogs' Home in Hertfordshire. Presently the superintendent spoke….
'Miss French's Irish terrier was not too grand. He was coughing a little. There was no real cause for anxiety, but he was not out of the wood.'
"I'll be down this afternoon," said Valerie.
She was as good as her word.
And since, to her grief, the little brown dog was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, she visited him the next day also and the day after that.