“Yes,” said Miss L’Estrange, “he deserves it. I can’t abide a man who goes in for deceiving a poor girl. So, at my own loss, mind you, I determined to come here this morning and give you a friendly tip.”
“Heaven knows I shall endeavor to repay you!” sighed David, in a perfect heat now to be out and doing, doing he knew not what.
“Is she very beautiful, your Violet?” asked his visitor, turning on him with one of her bird-like movements of the head.
“That is her sister,” said David, flinging a hand toward the portrait.
“Ah, I knew Gwen Barnes. Saw her in the theater, you know. A nice girl, but nothing to rave about. Rather of the clinging sort. You men prefer that type I do believe. And now that you have heard my yarn, you want me to go, eh?”
“No, no. No hurry at all.”
“You dear David! Mouth all ‘No,’ eyes all ‘Yes.’ That’s it. Treat me like an old shoe. Bless you! we women worship that sort of thing, until, all at once, we blaze up. Well, you will give Strauss a drubbing one of these days, and I shan’t be sorry. I hate pretty men. They are all affectation, and waxy like a barber’s doll. Well, ta-ta! You’re going to have a nice, pleasant day, I can see. But, fair play, mind. No telling tales about your little Ermyn. I have done more for you to-day than I would do for any other man in creation. And some day you must bring your Violet to tea; I promise to be good and talk nice. There, now; ain’t I a wonder?”
And she was gone, in a whirl of flounces and high heels, the last he heard of her when she declined to let him come to the door “with that glare” in his eye being her friendly hail to the lift-man: “Hello, Jimmie! Like old times to see you again. How’s the wife and the kiddies?”
Left to his own devices, David was at his wits’ end to know how to act for the best. At last he wrote a telegram to Violet:
The girl you met yesterday as Sarah Gissing was not your sister’s maid, but another woman masquerading in her stead. I implore you and your mother to come to London and meet me in Mr. Dibbin’s office. He knows the real Sarah Gissing, and will produce her.