“Then we will leave some of them behind. I promised mamma I would never travel without Hannele and Jakob—she was afraid of my becoming English and independent, so she made me promise not to go about unattended,” explained Helene rather piteously to Philippa—“so we must take them; but with your William besides, we can manage quite well.”
“Now you know you only want William because his name is the same as the groom’s in ‘Mademoiselle Mathilde,’” said Usk unkindly.
“No,” said Helene, with dignity. “It is because it is not suitable for my husband to have no attendant while I have two.”
“And look here, Usk,” said Mansfield; “you can establish your wife and the servants comfortably at some safe centre while you go off and follow up clues. It’ll be much better for her to have some one with her.”
“That is not what I want,” objected Helene—“to be left safe and comfortable while Usk goes into danger. I want to go with him and help.”
“Oh, but you don’t want to be in the way, Lenchen,” said Philippa, speaking with the authority of a whole year of matrimonial experience. “You will do as Usk thinks best, I know, and he’ll take you with him wherever he can, won’t you, Usk?”
“Rather!” said Usk forgivingly, and Helene brushed away a threatening tear or two, and smiled up at him.
“Because, you see,” Philippa went on, “this is such an awful thing that we must none of us think about ourselves at all, only about Uncle Cyril and how to find him. We had better settle that you are to telegraph for Fred the moment you want him, Usk. I don’t think he ought to leave Palestine until you see what there is to be done, for I know the Chevalier Goldberg considers his presence here very important.”
“I hate being made a part of a plot and not seeing how it works,” said Mansfield gloomily. “If you wire I’ll come like a shot, Usk. Which is the quickest way?”
“To land in Dardania and cross the mountains, if the steamers fit. Why does Aunt Ernestine tell me to come round by Trieste, I wonder?”