"The Countess was listening on the extension wire while he was speaking to me. She thought it was you calling up and was eager to hear what had happened. It was she who put it into my head. She said you must have given his nose a jolly good pulling or something of the sort. I am extremely sorry, but she heard every word he said, even to the mildest damn."
"It must have had a very familiar sound to her," I said sourly.
"So she informed me."
"Oh, you've seen her, eh?"
"She came down to the secret door a few minutes ago and urged me to set out to meet you. She says she can hardly wait for the news. I was to send you upstairs at once."
Confound him, he took that very instant to hold the lantern up to my face again, and caught me grinning like a Cheshire cat.
I hurried to my room and brushed myself up a bit. On my bureau, in a glass of water, there was a white boutonniere, rather clumsily constructed and all ready to be pinned in the lapel of my coat. I confess to a blush. I wish Britton would not be so infernally arduous in his efforts to please me.
The Countess gave a little sigh of relief when I dashed in upon her a few minutes later. She had it all out of me before I had quite recovered my breath after the climb upstairs.
"And so it was I who spent all the money," she mused, with a far-away look in her eyes.
"In trying to be a countess," said I boldly.