"Us?" cried Barbara, turning her shrewd eyes from one to the other with sudden enlightenment. "Aha!" she smiled knowingly, and Prue, blushing and faltering, found no word to explain away her unvoiced suspicion. "I am glad, at any rate," she went on rather dryly, "to find Sir Geoffrey's nose out of joint! But if you want help, why did you not ask Beachcombe, who seems all too willing to return to your feet, and who has already, if I am not mistaken, once rescued this gentleman from Newgate?"
"Barbara, he wishes nothing so much as to get him back there. Scarce an hour ago he proposed to me to decoy him here that he might seize him and rob him of valuable papers. No doubt he would kill him if he resisted, or throw him into prison. So now, dear Barbara, help me to devise some way of getting him away from here unobserved."
"That is not difficult," Barbara assured her. "My new chair is amply large for two. If Captain de Cliffe will give me his arm, we will walk out of this house together and he can escort me home."
"But, Bab, if that wretch is on the watch, he may attack you. Remember, he has seen Rob—Captain de Cliffe here, and if you had seen his face as I did, when he looked in at the door! Oh, you may be sure that even you would not be safe at his hands, if you stood between him and the object of his hatred!"
"I have a better plan," said Barbara, laughing mischievously, "and one that promises more diversion. You are tall, Captain," she looked him over with an approving eye, "a proper man, i' faith! Do you think you could be trusted to take the place of one of my chairmen? They are all six-foot men, chosen to match in size; I am very fastidious in such matters. Three are new to my service, but the fourth is a faithful lad, who can be trusted to hold his tongue. In his livery you can defy my Lord Beachcombe and his myrmidons and walk away under their noses."
This proposition was quite to Prue's taste and Robin, who was too anxious to get away without causing her any serious trouble, to care much in what guise he fared forth, gratefully consented. So James was despatched to call Lady Barbara's man Thomas, to whom she conveyed her commands in the fewest possible words, and the two ladies withdrew while the exchange of costume was effected, and the stolid Thomas, too well accustomed to his mistress' whims to raise the least question, resigned his crimson coat and gold-laced hat, his silk stockings and buckled shoes, and even his powdered bob-wig, to the new chairman.
By this time Prue's usual afternoon court was assembling in far greater numbers than the little house could easily accommodate, and the rustle of brocades and the ripple of gay voices filled the air. Outside the library Barbara hesitated. "I think I will not go back to your visitors, Prue, my tongue is apt to slip out of my control and I might say something compromising," she said. Then, seeing the door open into the empty dining-room, she went in, drawing Prue after her.
"Is it serious, child?" she demanded, with a hand on each shoulder and Prue's eyes vainly attempting to meet her searching gaze unflinchingly. "Is it possible that the heart that has resisted a hundred and one skilled assaults can have surrendered to the 'Stand and deliver' of a brigand? Come, tell me everything!—if you are in love with him—"
"Oh! no, no!" cried Prue, shrinking in horror from the extent of the revelation she might be drawn into if she began with such an admission. "Love! what nonsense—for a highwayman?" and she laughed, though with less than her usual abandon.
"Yet he is a charming fellow," said Barbara insinuatingly. "He might have caught your fancy—but, in fact," in a gay tone, "I'm glad he has not, for to own the truth, I am more than half disposed to carry off your highwayman and hold him prisoner for a day or two. 'Twill be safer for him and his adventures will surely keep me entertained for a while—and, who knows? I might amuse myself by making a conquest of this gentle savage!"