"Oh, yes, do. Oh, how good you are!" In her relief and gratitude she leant her head against his shoulder and cried a little. Grisel looked on, very pale and tense. "Can—can you leave Miss Perkins?" she asked forlornly.
For a moment he trembled on the brink of abject confession. Then he girded up his loins.
"Oh, yes," he said. "She'll quite understand. Very understanding girl. I—I'll ring her up from the office."
"If—if you'd like to ring her up from here"—Grisel's voice shook a little, and he bent his face over Mrs. Walbridge's jaded hat to hide a smile of triumph that he could not repress—"mother and I will be upstairs in my room—with the door shut."
"No, thanks. I've got to get to the office anyhow, and I'll ring her up from there."
[CHAPTER XXI]
Guy Walbridge did not die. He was very ill, and many weeks passed before his mother could bring him back to England; but after the first part of her stay in Paris he was out of danger, and her letters, particularly those she wrote to Caroline Breeze, showed that she was having a happy time. One of these letters had perhaps better be given, as it explains a good many things. She went to Paris on the 13th of February. This letter was written the first Tuesday in March, and was dated at a boarding-house in the Rue St. Ferdinand. One evening after dinner Grisel, to whom Caroline had brought the letter in the afternoon, according to directions in it, read it aloud to Oliver and Jenny Wick and Sir John Barclay, as they sat round the fire in the girls' room.