“It is not in the least necessary. Small is quite able to help with Miss Cass’s luggage. Are you not, Small?”
“Yes, m’m,” came a slow but truculent response from the seat of Jehu.
“Oh, no.” The young man was amazing. “Much better let me. Porters are in such short supply at all the stations these days. Besides, I want to send off a wire. So that if there’s room at the back of the cart for me as well as for that trunk——?”
“Woa-a-a horse!”
George, the incredible, had one foot on the back step already. Miss Cass, smiling and calm, was seated deftly in front. If the look of her had a meaning she knew only too well that all the cards were in her hand.
Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson saw that the game was going against her heavily, but she gathered herself for a final throw. “My dear George, you will catch your death,” she cried.
It was a dank morning of November. There was even a thin spatter of rain. George, the overcoatless, reluctantly lifted his foot from the step of the dogcart. “I’ll get my British Warm,” he said.
Too elemental for a thought of treachery to enter his mind, the young man turned suddenly into the house in quest of that garment.
Openly and palpably fighting for victory Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson saw her chance. No modest scruple stayed her. “Drive on, Small,” she said sternly, as soon as the young man had passed indoors. “Don’t wait for General Norris.”
Small, ready at all times to obey his mistress, was prepared to do so now. He may or he may not have had a full grasp of the case. Such fellows are not always so wooden-witted as they appear. But he valued his place and beyond a doubt he would not have waited for General Norris had it not been for the prompt intervention of the lady who shared with him the front seat. With a suddenness very disconcerting to John, the shameless Miss Cass sprang to her feet. “My box is not very secure, I’m afraid. It might fall out at the back.”