“Call 'em cousins, please! I have your pledge that you won't tell? Ah, Baron, your charming wife and I understand one another.”
Then raising his voice for the benefit of the company generally—
“Well, you two will want to have a little talk in the waiting-room, I've no doubt. We shall pace the platform. Very fit Rudolph's looking, isn't he, Baroness? You've no idea how his lungs have strengthened.”
“His lungs!” exclaimed the Baroness in a changed voice.
Giving the Baron a wink to indicate that there lay the ace of trumps, he answered reassuringly—
“When you learn how he has improved you'll forgive me, I'm sure, for taking him on this little trip. Well, see you somewhere down the line, no doubt—I'm going by the same train.”
He watched them pass into the waiting-room, and then turned an altered face to the two dumbfounded girls. It was expressive now solely of sympathy and contrition.
“Let us walk a little this way,” he began, and thus having removed them safely from earshot of the waiting-room door, he addressed himself to the severest part of his task.
“My dear girls, I owe you I don't know how many apologies for presuming to claim you as my friends. The acuteness of the emergency is my only excuse, and I throw myself most contritely upon your mercy!”
This second projection of himself upon a lady's mercy proved as successful as the first.