"Your what?"
"My brolly: my 'mush'; ma's best gold-handled umbrella."
"I'll lend you mine."
"Oh! it isn't that. I get the 'bus at the door, and only have a step to walk at the other end. But how'm I to get it back?"
"Aren't you coming again soon?"
She shook her head. You would never have guessed the stranger felt disappointed. He felt in his pocket and pushed a card across the table.
"Write an address on that," he said, "and leave me your check. I'll have it sent to-night by a messenger boy."
Fenella considered a moment. The card lay face downward, and it was a great temptation. But her good breeding triumphed. Without turning it over she wrote her name and address, very slowly, in print letters. Meantime she soliloquized thus:
"I hate rain. It's harder on women. Your petties get wet and slop round your ankles. I wish I could always dress as a boy. It's so picture-squeak—picturesque I mean. I do sometimes. Dances, you know: in a quartette, gavottes and things. I'm a boy, 'cos you can't teach men.... There you are. I hope you can read it.... I had a ripping dress at the 'Bechway' in the spring. Blue and silver, and powdered hair, and a little diamondy sword."
"Which you could use upon occasion with great spirit, I'll wager, Monsieur le Marquis."