Mr. Sarsby felt that a situation had arisen with which he was unable to cope. The only thing that occurred to him to do was to temporize. "You will have to come back to the hotel," he said, "to get your luggage. We will talk it over on the way there."
"Just as you please," the girl answered carelessly, "only so far as I am concerned, there is nothing to talk over."
Mr. Sarsby hailed a 'bus which deposited them presently within a few yards of the semi-private hotel in Montague Street at which they were staying. It was one of those establishments which, from being a small boarding-house, had blossomed out into a hotel, with all the outward signs of its more prosperous rivals. There was an entrance hall, a reception office, and two long-limbed giants in light blue livery, who spoke every language except their own. The people who frequented it were either Americans, or people from the isolated country places, such as Mr. Sarsby and his niece.
"I am not going to talk anything over until I have had some lunch," the girl declared. "We need not go out. It is only eighteenpence each here. You can afford that, especially as you are probably going to be rid of me forever."
Mr. Sarsby frowned. "We will lunch here if you prefer it," he said. "I am not aware that I have hesitated at anything on the score of expense."
The girl laughed. There was a note in her mirth which was strange to Mr. Sarsby. He relinquished his well-worn silk hat to a boy in buttons, straightened his old-fashioned tie before a passing mirror, and led the girl into the dining-room. The size of the apartment, the number of the waiters, the indefinable sense of being in a great city, which had oppressed him since the train had rolled into the terminus on his arrival, once more had its effect upon him. He felt sure that his niece understood nothing of what she was talking about. He drank bottled beer with his lunch, and soon summoned up courage to reopen the matter.
"It was a very good idea of yours, my dear Ruby," he said, "to lunch here. I am sure that for the money it is a most excellent meal."
She gave vent to a little interjection which might have meant anything. If he had not been so sure that she was unused to such magnificence, he would have believed that it was intended to indicate a certain amount of contempt at her entertainment.
"And now," Mr. Sarsby continued, "let me speak to you seriously."
The suggestion that there had been anything of mirth from which Mr. Sarsby desired to lead the way appealed to the girl's sense of humor. Her lips parted, and the sullen discontent of her face was for a moment lightened.