“What a little sceptic it is!” she said. “Look here, Madame. You will do as you please. You will see your solicitor, see a dozen solicitors. But first I will go myself to Mr. Candover, and see if he can help us out of this business. It may be he will say it is you who are right, and I who am wrong. At any rate, we will take his opinion first. And if you do not like it, you can then get another one.”
This seemed reasonable, particularly as Audrey saw, by the Frenchwoman’s excitement, that she was anxious and agitated. In all probability, Audrey thought, the two would think it wiser to come to a fair understanding with her, so that she could get out of the disagreeable business in which she found herself involved, at some loss indeed, but without the sacrifice of the whole of her fifteen hundred pounds.
Mademoiselle Laure was in earnest, for she started at once on her errand, after giving such recommendations to Audrey and the assistants as she thought might be useful; and the poor little head of the firm was left in sole command.
She would not, however, take any part in the day’s work, but shut herself into her little back-room on the approach of a customer, determined to have nothing more to do with the business until one of two things should happen: either she would erase the name Rocada from the windows and the firm’s stationery, and free the place from Laure; or she would retire altogether after receiving such compensation as she could get from that astute and unscrupulous pair, Mr. Candover and his half-sister.
But she tried in vain to escape the annoyances which her position entailed upon her.
Mademoiselle Laure was away a long time, and Audrey went out to luncheon and returned to find her still absent. It was late in the afternoon when she heard from her room, a voice she recognised asking for Madame Rocada.
And Audrey knew that the newcomer was Sir Barnaby Joyce.
She heard one of the saleswomen tell him that Madame was out, and the voice of the jovial baronet saying in reply that he would “wait till she was in then”.
Hurriedly deciding that she had better see him, and find out if she could what opinion was held about this miserable affair, and whether it was her version or Mr. Candover’s which was the most generally received, Audrey came out of her room, and following Sir Barnaby into the first of the showrooms, bowed to him with sedate dignity and stood waiting for him to speak, in a regal attitude which suited her tall figure, and the trained dress with its sparkling trimming of jet paillettes which set off so well her fair skin and golden hair.
The baronet turned quickly to meet her, bowed low in his turn, and greeted her with the most effusive courtesy. But Audrey was in no mood to meet his advances halfway, and she allowed him to stammer out a suggestion that he wished to make his wife a present “of—of—of—in point of fact of a—a—hat or bonnet or something of that sort,” without any attempt to help him out.