"Will you not stay and say good-bye to the Baron?"
"No, my dear; I would rather not. You must make my excuses. Of course, you could not fail to notice how the Baron ogled me at luncheon. He puts me so much in mind of poor dear Major Pondicherry. But I never cared greatly for foreigners; besides, he will smell horribly of gunpowder when he comes in.--There again! Not another moment will I stay."
Clara Brooke's face rippled over with suppressed laughter as Miss Primby left the room. Then she turned to her letters again, and tied them up with ribbon. "I have heard that some people burn their love-letters when they get married," she mused. "What strange beings they must be! Nothing in the world would induce me to burn mine. Sweet silent messengers of love, what happy secrets lie hidden in your leaves!" She pressed the letters to her lips, put them away inside the davenport, and locked them up.
Just as she had done this, the pompous tones of Bunce, who filled the joint positions of majordomo and butler at the Towers, became plainly audible. Apparently he was standing outside the side-door and addressing his remarks to someone on the terrace. "Now, the sooner you take your hook the better," the two ladies heard him say. "We don't want none of your kidney here. This ain't no place for mountebanks--I should think not indeed!" Mr. Bunce in his ire had evidently forgotten the proximity of his mistress.
Clara crossed to one of the windows, and looking out saw, some little distance away, two strange figures slowly crossing the terrace. One was that of a man whose costume of a street tumbler was partly hidden by the long shabby overcoat he wore over it, which was closely buttoned to the chin. Over one shoulder a drum was slung, and in his left hand he carried a set of Pandean pipes. The second figure was that of a boy some eight or nine years old, who had hold of the man's right hand. Under one arm he carried a small roll of faded carpet. In point of dress he was a miniature copy of the elder mountebank, minus the overcoat. His throat was swathed in a dingy white muffler, while his profusion of yellow curls were kept from straying by a fillet round his forehead embroidered with silvered beads.
"Poor creatures," said Clara to herself. "Bunce had no business to speak to them as he did. How dejected they look, and the child seems quite footsore."
At this juncture the man happening to turn his head, caught sight of her. She at once beckoned him to approach.
The mountebank's face lighted up and all signs of dejection vanished in a moment. He had some kind of old cap on his head. This he now removed, and bowed profoundly twice. It was a bow that might have graced a drawing-room. Then he and the boy crossed the terrace towards Mrs. Brooke.
"Fan, I want you; come here," said Clara to her friend.
Lady Fanny rose languidly and crossed to the window.