Noblesse oblige! It was by no means a promising start, but Mary was not going to take her hand from the plough yet. And that dreadful journey could not last for ever. Victoria was reached at length, and it was possible to breathe a little comparatively fresh air again. Mary saw her two dress baskets placed on the platform and looked at them in a helpless kind of manner. Hitherto a maid or a footman had done all this kind of thing for her. An impatient porter wanted to know whether the boxes were to go on a cab or whether they were to be left in the cloak room.
"Make up your mind, miss," he said rudely. "I can't stand here all day."
"A four-wheeler," Mary gasped. "I--I'm sorry, but my head aches so dreadfully that I can't even think properly. Will you call a cab for me?"
[CHAPTER XXXVI.]
CONNIE COLAM
The porter summoned a cab gruffly and the baskets were placed on top. Mary's proffered coppers purchased a certain amount of civility so that the porter asked the address. Mary gasped and stared in a blank kind of way. She had absolutely forgotten the address. She recollected now that she had left the card on the hall table at the dower house. How she longed from the bottom of her heart to be back there again in that cool shadow. But the grimy face of the cabman recalled her to her senses.
"I have stupidly left the address behind me," she said. "I remember the street, and I daresay you can inquire when you get there. I am very sorry----"
"Miss Dashwood, I think," a cool, firm voice, with a subtle suggestion of laughter in it, smote on Mary's ears. "So you have forgotten the address. Not that it matters in the least, for you are coming with me. You haven't taken your room?"
"No," Mary stammered. She was utterly taken off her dignity by the easy manner of the stranger. "I had the address given me, the address of a respectable woman near the British Museum who had apartments to let. Unfortunately, I left the paper behind me. But you will excuse me if I say that I have not the pleasure----"
"Oh, that is all right," the stranger said. "I'm a friend of Ralph Darnley's. He sent me a very long telegram today to a certain extent explaining the position of affairs, and asking me to meet you and place my services at your disposal. Perhaps you have heard Ralph speak of me, Connie Colam."