“L-Lady Elfreda said it would be quite all right,” she was just able to gasp. “She said there was no one here who knew her. She said that if”—gathering herself for a supreme effort—“I—I—p-played up and didn’t give myself away it wouldn’t be found out.” And Miss Cass collapsed against the side of the bed.
“Wouldn’t be found out!” It was as much as Pikey could do to keep her hands off the little idiot.
Pikey, however, was not a fool. Already her mind had shaped the question of questions, What must she do? She did not forget that she had been sent specially from Ireland to take charge of one who had always insisted on going her own way, and if she now confessed that she had let herself be tricked in such a preposterous manner she would be severely hauled over the coals and might even lose the place which she valued beyond all things in this life. Again, immediately below the surface of the Dragon’s nature was the foolish, fond old nurse. Entering the Carabbas household in early life she had mothered a large family, first in a subordinate capacity, and then when it came to Elfreda’s turn, as absolute head of the nursery. Elfreda in consequence held quite a special place in her affections. The family of Carabbas was the whole world and its wife as far as Pikey was concerned; the rest of the universe didn’t count at all; but the one who had given her more trouble than all the others together had been her particular charge. Had it ever been really necessary, the Werewolf would have gone to the stake for Elfreda.
If Pikey’s first thought was that she must not give herself away, the one that pressed it hard was that she must not give away her favorite. But she was faced with a situation of fantastic difficulty. It was frankly beyond her. She didn’t in the least know what to do.
Miss Cass was in similar case, except that somewhere in her confused mind was a pathetic but sublime faith in Lady Elfreda. The daughter of the marquis had solemnly promised with her air of uncanny competence that everything would turn out right if only her deputy “played up,” and somehow the bewildered but secretly flattered Girlie felt bound to believe her. Such a one as Lady Elfreda must know the ropes perfectly. And up to this point her mentor had been amazingly right. Everything had gone almost as merrily as a marriage bell.
“Well, I don’t know what to do, and that’s a fact,” said Pikey again.
In the end it was the lady of Laxton who really took the epic decision. There were several factors in the case which helped her to do so. Her faith was sublime, she had succeeded already, she was enormously ambitious, such an amazing chance for first-hand experience could never recur, and when the worst had been said of her, with all her timidity she was a decidedly shrewd daughter of a long line of commercial sires. Besides at the very moment that the issue hung in the balance her tranced eyes beheld what no pen could describe: An enchanting shimmer of misty blue, silver and tulle laid out on the bed. It was such a dress as one day she might have dreamt of wearing, yet knowing well that she was never likely to do so.
That glorious confection decided Girlie Cass. She must play up, she must play up to the very height of her opportunity. “There is a tide,” etc. Inscrutable fate had ordained that she was to be the daughter of a marquis. Come what may she would be the daughter of a marquis and so prove herself worthy of her destiny.
The little lady, with a courage she knew and felt was superhuman, took off her coat and hat and then she said with a steadiness of tone she could not help admiring in herself, “I think you said the blue one.”
It was quite true that Pikey had said the blue one, but this audacity rendered her speechless. Certainly it solved the most pressing of their problems—for the time being at least—but the grim custodian of Family dignity would dearly have liked to slay Miss No-Class for her impudence.