"I didn't mean to leave you," he said gently, "but there was something that had to be attended to and couldn't wait. Can you walk as far as the library? There is a fire there and I will get you something dry. We can't go upstairs, because I suppose you don't care to let Blanche in on this?"
"Blanche?" I said, trying to balance on my one heel.
"My brother's wife," he explained. "Luckily, she's a little deaf, and Thad has gone up to see she doesn't snoop. What in the world is the matter? Just now you were quite tall and stately, and now you are hardly to my shoulder!"
So I told him about my heel, and he said he liked little women, and that no person who was just five feet two inches and had really curly hair was ever a Militant at heart, and that he had always thought young American girls were well heeled. It was an astonishing joke for an Englishman, until it developed that he had been living in California for a dozen years and was only home on a visit. And that his name was John, although he was mostly called Jack. When we were nicely settled by the library fire and the man had brought me a cup of tea that would have floated an egg, I asked him quite casually if there was a Mrs. John. He drew his chair up just opposite me and leaned forward with his chin in his hands.
"Not yet," he said.
Something made me draw my breath in sharply—I think it was his tone—and I quite scalded my throat with the tea. The fire was very hot, and little clouds of steam began to rise from my white satin.
"I have spoiled my gown," I said ruefully, "and I had such plans for it."
"What kind of plans?" he asked, moving his chair forward a little. "Do tell me. I'm always making plans myself. And pretty soon, when you are dry and the motor is ready, I shall have to take you back to Ivry, and when we meet again—if we ever do, for Daphne is going to kill me on sight—you will be very, very formal and have both your heels."
"I hope you will forgive me," I said stiffly, "for calling you a—a thief and locking you up and—everything. I don't understand anything yet; it must be because I am so sleepy."
"Poor little girl!" he said. "What you have gone through! And as for forgiving you, you saved my life to-night. Why, if you thought me a thief, did you unload that revolver? If you tell me that I will try to clear up the rest of the mysteries."