"I hope you will excuse us, Mr...."
"Wentworth," supplied Alf. He was getting used to his new name now.
"Mr. Wentworth, for bursting in upon you in this way. I am Miss FitzPeter, and this is Mr. Allen." Alf, quaking at the knees, shook hands with his late commander. He felt, in spite of his clean-shaved upper lip, that nothing could prevent his detection now; but Allen gave no sign of recognition. Indeed, he hardly looked at Mr. Wentworth's face at all in his delighted examination of his clothes.
Isobel, struggling with herself, went straight to the point. Only by doing this, she felt, could she stifle the demon of laughter within her; and if she chanced to catch Allen's eye nothing could save her.
"I'm afraid I've come on business, Mr. Wentworth. Worse than that, on begging business. I'm collecting for a Red Cross hospital which is being started at Anston. It's such a good object and they do need funds so badly—and I wondered—would you be so kind—anything will do...."
She concluded with her famous smile which had in another life done yeoman service to the country at flag-days and bazaars. Alf, whose obfuscated intellect had been groping wildly for a meaning in her elliptical remarks, suddenly understood. Here was a chance for a display of his wealth. Fate was indeed playing into his hands.
"Farr," he said, "go an' get some money."
Mustapha, who had all this while been gazing upon Isobel with lively and increasing satisfaction, was much pleased to find that this lovely "slave" had found favor in his master's eyes. He went off joyfully to the house to obey Alf's command, and in a few moments he returned followed by six female slaves. Isobel and Allen, whose hopes had been raised by their glimpse of the polychromatic Lucy, were disappointed to find that these were clad in sober black, relieved only by the neatest of caps and aprons. But this only threw into greater prominence their un-English appearance.
Each of the six carried a bulky bag. Mustapha, coming forward, laid a cloth upon the ground at Allen's feet, and made a sign to the first slave. She approached, and having (with much crackling of her apron) made a deep obeisance, poured out upon the cloth a jingling, flashing stream of gold coins. Then she bowed once more to the earth and retired.