With increasing dismay she heard all that Mrs. Vanderstein had to tell her, seeing her hopes for Joe vanish more completely at each new piece of information; and when at the end of the tale her friend reproached her for her lack of sympathy she had much ado to prevent herself from bursting into unavailing tears.
She was able, however, to summon enough self-control to find some words of affection, which seemed to fill the requirements of the situation; at all events they seemed to satisfy Mrs. Vanderstein. The girl only made one stipulation, and on this point remained obstinate till the elder lady, failing to shake her determination, was at last obliged to yield a reluctant consent.
As soon as she could escape, Barbara, making the first excuse that occurred to her, ran to her room, where she pinned on a hat without so much as waiting to glance in the looking-glass. Then, snatching up a latch key, she let herself out of the hall door and hurried to the nearest post office.
Several telegraph forms were filled in, only to be torn up and discarded before she worded the message to her satisfaction; and even when she handed it in under the barrier—which protects young ladies of the post office from too close contact with a public who might, were it not for these precautions, be exasperated into showing signs of violence—she was still regarding it doubtfully, and her fingers lingered on the paper as if reluctant to let it go.
It was addressed to Joseph Sidney, and covered more than one form.
“Plan completely spoilt will explain meanwhile try telling your aunt the truth as you promised she will be in at teatime and it will be best to get it over one way or another.”
Would he come? she asked herself, as she went back to the house; and all the afternoon the same question echoed in her mind. Would he come? And, if he came and did not succeed in enlisting Mrs. Vanderstein’s sympathies, what then?
There seemed no other possible course. In vain, as she sat beside her friend in the motor, she racked her brains to imagine some way in which Joe could still raise the money if this attempt failed. But she had his assurance that he had already exhausted all practicable means.
Mrs. Vanderstein wished to visit a shop in the Strand, and their way to it led them past the theatre that Madame Querterot had visited a week before, in the company of her daughter and her daughter’s suitor.
Large placards ornamented the front of the house, depicting some of the more thrilling episodes of the play. These were varied by photographs of the young actor who played the principal rôle. He was portrayed in immaculate evening dress and in the act of opening the safe; another picture showed him snapping his fingers at the officers of the law; and yet a third displayed him as he took—in the fourth act—the heroine to his arms.