Tripping gaily down the street on the arm of the little blesse, parasol unfurled, eyes upcast in characteristic admiring pose came Miss Comstock.
“Run, Jack!” gasped Serena. “She mustn’t see you ...” and there was a scramble for the doorway, a hasty return for the straw hat, and at the last minute Cynthia reached out to switch the untasted beer to another table, as though a departing customer had left it there. But it was a close shave.
Aunt Anna was full of the sights she had seen, the new bargains she had procured, of the delightful little soldier who had showed her around, but her eyes were keen and Cynthia knew she did not miss that beer at the next table. Then Cynthia did a clumsy thing, she dropped the volume of Conrad. For just a moment it lay, face upward on the floor, the sprawling signature showing plainly across its cover. Cynthia bent to grab it, hastily flapped it on top her purse, she rose immediately to go, she couldn’t risk the fact that Miss Comstock might have glimpsed that name.
The next two hours were merely a matter of waiting. Serena and her aunt usually dined at eight, and Cynthia, cautiously strolling along the street which commanded Serena’s bedroom window watched for the agreed signal, a handkerchief; pasted against the pane as though put there for drying. She waited five minutes more, then slipped upstairs, repeating to herself the story she would tell if any one tried to stop her. But no one did.
Serena’s room-key hung, in trusting European fashion on a high nail beside her door. Cynthia took it down, glanced once again along the corridor, thought she heard footsteps and hastily turned the key. Inside.
Serena’s bag, already packed, had been slid beneath her bed. Her traveling coat and hat, her street shoes were with it. Cynthia grabbed the lot and opened the door again. Then came a moment of fright, for the maid, Agnés, stood just outside in the corridor. But she was wreathed in smiles, already primed by Serena for the enlévement, the elopement, and her ancient romantic heart was in the job. She piloted Cynthia along the corridor and down the servant’s stairway, then out through an alley behind the garage, put her finger to her lips as a vow of silence, then blew a kiss into the air as a gesture of her best wishes for the bride and groom. No word between them had been passed during the whole four minutes of action. Cynthia, giggling, was on her way. This was certainly something to write home about.
The remainder worked like a charm, a charm of ancient Carcassonne, where, even in the tenth century young ladies must have fled with their heart’s desire. At nine o’clock the rapide for Marseilles stopped for five minutes at the tiny station. At nine minutes to nine Jack with his suitcase, Cynthia with Serena’s belongings and a bunch of flowers for the bride-to-be, watched anxiously down the street. Then against the sunset appeared Serena, breathless, with dusty evening slippers, still in her dinner gown, but happy and incoherent with excitement.
“Oh you treasures, both of you!” she cried. “Have we tickets? ... Goodness, there’s the train already ... She thinks I’m out buying some aspirin tablets ... I didn’t have time to leave a note on the pincushion ... My lamb, will you tell her I’ve gone? ...” and rattled on and on while they climbed into the compartment. Cynthia kept one anxious eye on the door. She didn’t know what would be the proper procedure should Aunt Anna appear at the station with the fire of suspicion in her eye. Cynthia had a wild momentary vision of herself grabbing the woman around her ample waist and hanging on until the train could have pulled out.
But no one appeared. The conductor blew his little toy trumpet, shouted the usual warning, and at the last minute Cynthia still clasping the bridal bouquet had to run beside the carriage to fling it through the window. She had a final glimpse of Serena’s starry eyes, of Jack’s white smile.
Then silence. Nothing.