“You will have Mrs. Pike to look after you. She is very experienced. If you hold your tongue you can’t go wrong.” Incredible words, incredible girl, incredible proposition! “You will have all my clothes, of course. I will see that my trunks are put in the luggage cart. And”—the whisper was dæmonic—“Mrs. Pike has some money.”
Girlie Cass could hardly breathe for excitement. The Patrician followed the pencil on to the floor. “There is a tide, etc.” Her heart began to hit her ribs violently.
“Give me your ulster, please.”
If only one’s head would not spin so!
“You’ll find this coat warmer and it’s very comfortable. It’ll be quite an amusing fortnight. Nobody will know—except Mrs. Pike, of course, who can be trusted implicitly. I quite think you’ll like it.”
The brain of Miss Cass was whirling helplessly. And yet there was a demon in hers also. What an opportunity, what a golden opportunity for first-hand experience! What a chance to see the great world from the inside. To be, for one whole fortnight, a real authentic daughter of a marquis ... if only one had courage!
Miss Cass never really knew how it happened, but a mile or so farther on she awoke to the momentous fact that she was wearing a sealskin coat with a skunk collar and a velour hat with a twist of skunk round it, while immediately opposite was a girl in a green ulster with a hat also trimmed with green.
“Please give me your ticket. This is mine.”
By the aid of some power not herself Miss Cass exchanged tickets with the Force that was luring her to glory and destruction.
Finally, as an afterthought, a typewritten abstract of “The Lady of Laxton” was handed to Miss Cass.