But, by a curious chance, the need to do so was spared him.
The following afternoon as he was turning out of Tottenham-court Road into Oxford Street, whom should he run against but Miss Jennings, the pretty barmaid, the drinking of whose health on her birthday, not wisely but too often, had been the proximate cause of Luigi’s getting into such disgrace with Sir Gilbert, since which occasion neither of them had seen anything of each other. Miss J., who was nothing if not self-possessed, at once stopped, smiled, and held out her hand.
“Why, Mr. Clare, of all people in the world, who would have thought of meeting you?” said the girl.
Luigi noticed with a flutter of gratification that she still addressed him as “Mr. Clare,” but the fact was that she did not know him by any other name.
“You see, London is such a little village,” he smilingly replied, “that we can’t very well help coming across everybody in it that we know. But what brings you, Miss J., so far away from the snuggery of the King’s Head?”
Then it came out that the girl was about to be married, and had come to spend a short time with some relatives in London prior to that important event.
“Many things have happened down Mapleford way, Mr. Clare,” she continued volubly; “more especially at the Chase—even in the little time since you gave us the go-by without saying a word to anybody.”
“And what has happened at the Chase?” queried Luigi, with a studied air of indifference.
“Law! haven’t you heard? It’s in everybody’s mouth, how Sir Gilbert’s son that was believed to have been killed years ago has come back home from foreign parts, and how since then the old gentleman has discovered his long-lost granddaughter. The young lady had been staying at the Chase for some time before Sir Gilbert discovered that she was his granddaughter. But most likely you know her, for she was there part of the time you were. The name she went by was Miss Ethel Thursby, and—— But I see that you know her,” for Luigi had given a violent start.
“Ethel Thursby Sir Gilbert’s granddaughter!” he exclaimed. “Are you sure of this, Miss J.?”