A look of cynic humour flashed into the other’s highly decorated eyes.
“I see,” she said, dryly; adding, “But at least come and take a turn with me. If you sit well back nobody will see you, and I have a hundred things to say to you. Come, get in!”
Bonnybell hesitated, though nothing could be more distasteful to her than her present position. At high noon, in open confabulation with a lady of Flora’s appearance and antecedents, exposed to the probability of recognition, and observed with respectful surprise by the chaperoning lady’s-maid, who, if she was of the block-like stupidity attributed to her by her mistress, was likewise of the highest and touchiest respectability. The sense of having conveyed to an old friend with brutal clumsiness that she was ashamed of being seen with her annoyed Miss Ransome also, though in a less degree. She put her face—it seemed impossible that both were made of the same materials—very close to Flora’s, and whispered—
“There’s a dragon with me—an imbecile of a maid. I dare not send her back without me.”
“Give her five shillings, and tell her to hold her tongue.”
This counsel, though its radical badness and inartistic quality was fully recognized by its recipient, was yet finally accepted, as being the least objectionable of the only two alternatives open to her. Flora, as she knew, would not let her go without a prolonged exchange of questions and answers, heard inevitably by the footman holding the brougham door open, and probably by a goodly number of Piccadilly flâneurs. Bonnybell had often before tipped servants to silence, and even when the tip was not very large or likely to have successors had seldom found reason to complain of their fidelity.
As Lady Tennington never cared what she said, where she said it, or who heard it, Miss Ransome decided that she had, on the whole, chosen practically the least perilous of the two vexatious paths open to her, when she and her companion were whizzing down the great thoroughfare.
“So it is all off!” said Flora, without preamble, as soon as they were in motion.
“What is all off?”