Eliza appeared with the swiftness of a Jack-in-the-box, full of suppressed excitement.
“Lor! I fought she was never goin',” she breathed. “Got it ready, Miss? The boy'll fink I've gorn an' eloped wiv it.” She took the envelope and pattered swiftly downstairs.
A very few moments saw Cecilia flying in her wake—to Balding's first, as quickly as tube and motor-bus could combine to take her, since she dared not breathe freely until Mrs. Rainham's commission had been settled. Balding's had never seemed so huge and so complicated, and when she at length made her way to the right department the suave assistant regretted that the trimming was sold out. It was Cecilia's face of blank dismay that made him suddenly remember that there was possibly an odd length somewhere, and a search revealed it, put away in a box of odds and ends. Cecilia's thanks were so heartfelt that the assistant was mildly surprised.
“For she don't seem the sort to wear ghastly stuff like that,” he pondered, glancing after the pretty figure in the well-cut coat and skirt.
Outside the great shop Cecilia glanced up and caught the eye of a taxi-driver who had just set down a fare.
“I'll be extravagant for once,” she thought. She beckoned to the man, and in a moment was whirring through the streets in the peculiar comfort a motor gives to anyone in a hurry in London—since it can take direct routes instead of following the roundabout methods of buses and underground railways. She leaned back, closing her eyes. If this summons to Bob indeed meant that their sailing orders had come, she would need all her wits and her coolness. For the first time she realized what her stepmother's absence from home might mean—a thousandfold less plotting and planning, and no risk of a horrible scene at the end. Cecilia loathed scenes; they had not existed in Aunt Margaret's scheme of existence. Since Bob's plans had become at all definite, she had looked forward with dread to a final collision with Mrs. Rainham—it was untold relief to know that it might not come.
She hurried up the steps of Mr. M'Clinton's office. The alert office boy—who had been Bob's messenger to Lancaster Gate—met her.
“You're to go straight in, miss. The Captain's there.”
Bob was in the inner sanctum with Mr. M'Clinton. They rose to meet her.
“Well—are you ready, young lady?” the old man asked.