“I’m off, my dears,” said the elderly virgin, as if guessing his thought. Her queer shallow eyes included them both in a sweeping glance, and she flung back from the threshold: “Be careful of what you say to George.”
What they had to say to each other did not last many minutes. The Brants had made various efforts, but had been baffled on all sides by the general agitation and confusion. In high quarters the people they wanted to see were inaccessible; and those who could be reached lent but a distracted ear. The Ambassador had at once declared that he could do nothing; others vaguely promised they “would see”—but hardly seemed to hear what they were being asked.
“And meanwhile time is passing—and he’s going!” Mrs. Brant lamented.
The reassurance that Campton brought from Fortin-Lescluze, vague though it was, came to her as a miraculous promise, and raised Campton suddenly in her estimation. She looked at him with a new confidence, and he could almost hear her saying to Brant, as he had so often heard her say to himself: “You never seem able to get anything done. I don’t know how other people manage.”
Her gratitude gave him the feeling of having been engaged in something underhand and pusillanimous. He made haste to take leave, after promising to pass on any word he might receive from the physician; but he reminded her that he was not likely to hear anything till George had been for some days at his base.
She acknowledged the probability of this, and clung to him with trustful eyes. She was much disturbed by the preposterous fact that the Government had already requisitioned two of the Brant motors, and Campton had an idea that, dazzled by his newly-developed capacity to “manage,” she was about to implore him to rescue from the clutches of the authorities her Rolls-Royce and Anderson’s Delaunay.
He was hastening to leave when the door again opened. A rumpled-looking maid peered in, evidently perplexed, and giving way doubtfully to a young woman who entered with a rush, and then paused as if she too were doubtful. She was pretty in an odd dishevelled way, and with her elaborate clothes and bewildered look she reminded Campton of a fashion-plate torn from its page and helplessly blown about the world. He had seen the same type among his compatriots any number of times in the last days.
“Oh, Mrs. Brant—yes, I know you gave orders that you were not in to anybody, but I just wouldn’t listen, and it’s not that poor woman’s fault,” the visitor began, in a plaintive staccato which matched her sad eyes and her fluttered veils.
“You see, I simply had to get hold of Mr. Brant, because I’m here without a penny—literally!” She dangled before them a bejewelled mesh-bag. “And in a hotel where they don’t know me. And at the bank they wouldn’t listen to me, and they said Mr. Brant wasn’t there, though of course I suppose he was; so I said to the cashier: ‘Very well, then, I’ll simply go to the Avenue Marigny and batter in his door—unless you’d rather I jumped into the Seine?’”
“Oh, Mrs. Talkett——” murmured Mrs. Brant.