"Oh, how can I? I don't even——"
"Know me," the stranger finished for her. "Let me help you, nevertheless. I assure you, upon my word and honor, that it is all right. If you will let me help you, before the afternoon is over you will know me well, and I hope you will know me all your life."
"That sounds more mysterious than Herr Lieder," said Happie with a frank laugh. There was something about this young man that carried conviction with whatever he said or did. He was so unmistakably well-bred, so simple, frank and honest that no one could doubt him.
Laura aroused herself from her musical delirium to stare open-eyed and open-mouthed at the spectacle, which at the same time nearly cost a pale woman a bath of hot tea at the hands of Gretta, who also saw it suddenly to her total undoing. It was that of a tall and very elegant young man gravely making his way through the crowded room, bearing tea, in Happie's wake, to the various little tables, while Happie supplemented him with more tea and little cakes, looking immensely relieved and quite as though there were nothing unusual in the situation.
"My goodness! Who is he? What can it mean?" whispered Laura to Gretta, who shook her head so hard that the end of her braid of hair slipped out of its confining bow, as she offered to an indignant customer a slice of lemon that had already been used. Margery came in at the door and stopped short, amazed to find the room so full. As she stood there, flushed and lovely, Polly and Penny in either hand, her eyes fell on Happie's assistant, and the color rushed up to her hair, while eyes and lips smiled radiantly. "Why, Mr. Gaston, what are you doing, and how did you find us?" she said, to Happie's consternation, as the tall young man dashed towards her.
CHAPTER X
"SEEING IS BELIEVING"
"Well!" gasped Happie. "My mercy me! It's that Robert Gaston!"
She said it aloud entirely forgetful of where she was, even of what she was, in the amazing discovery of the identity of her rescuer. She told her mother afterwards that it was nothing but good fortune and her size that kept her from falling into a teapot, a little like the Dormouse, and only the lack of space that kept her from dropping to the floor.