"Don't you worry," answered Gertie. "I'm not a parrot."
"I shan't feel happy about you," said the forewoman solicitously, "until I hear you've got another berth. The smash-up will come as a surprise to the others, but I don't care a snap of the fingers about them or about myself. It's you I'm thinking about!"
Madame one night, at the sloping desk, referred vaguely to a wish that, as she hastened to add, could never in any circumstances be gratified. Urged by Gertie, on the other side, to put the desire into words, Madame took off spectacles which she wore only when the rest of the staff had gone, and said wistfully that if she could but get a paragraph into the newspapers containing the name of the firm, she thought it would be possible to die happy. Having ascertained this did not mean that suicide would follow, Gertie sent a note to Clarence Mills, absent since the evening of the impulsive departure from Ewelme. No answer came, and Gertie was assuming that her cousin intended, in this way, to prove he was not on terms of peace with her, when one of the loom workers brought in, after lunch hour, an evening journal, obtained by him because he required advice regarding the investment of small sums on the prospects of racehorses.
"Here's a bit about us, miss," he said exultantly, with thumb against the paragraph. "Here we are. Large as life, and twice as natural!"
The paragraph was found in other newspapers, and indeed it went about Great Britain later and found its way to the Colonies. "An Oriental Omen" it was headed, and Madame's only regret appeared to be that it could not be held to be distinguished by the quality of absolute truth. But there it stood in print, and there was the name of Hilbert and Co., the old established firm, making a speciality of manufacturing military accoutrements, dating from the glorious year of Waterloo, and Madame's delight proved beyond the powers of expression; her gratitude to Miss Higham was conveyed by a kiss. One competing firm, it was discovered, wrote a sarcastic letter to the papers that must have taken hours to compose, throwing doubts on the accuracy of the report and inquiring whether it was a fact that Wellington's achievement followed the Franco-Prussian War, and this might have been inserted but for the suggestion of self-advertisement made with something less than the dexterity that belonged to Clarence's pen.
"I tell you what, Miss Higham," said Madame definitely. "You must come to supper at my house the very next Sunday evening that ever is. Your aunt won't mind for once. I'll write down the address. My proper name is Jacks. Yes, dear, I'm married, to tell you the truth, only I don't want it talked about here."
Frederick Bulpert, when he arrived on the Sunday evening, entered a warm protest against what he described as this eternal gadding about. On ascertaining the destination, he admitted circumstances altered cases; where business was concerned, private interests had to give way. He explained that some of his present irritation was due to the fact that, at a Bohemian concert the previous evening, an elderly gentleman had been pointed out to him as the representative of an important Sunday newspaper; the comic singer who gave the information, encountered a few minutes since in Marylebone Road, confessed that it was one of his jokes. "And all the drinks I stood," complained Bulpert, "and all the amiable remarks I made, absolutely wasted!" Gertie, apparelled in her finest and best, went at the hour of seven, after Bulpert and her aunt had quarrelled regarding the best and speediest mode of transit, to make her way to King's Road, Chelsea. There, in a turning she twice walked by without noticing, she found a house with several brass knobs at the side of the door. A maid answered her ring.
"Sounds as though they're in the studio," remarked the maid, with a wink. "What name?"
The servant opened the door and gave the announcement, but in the tumult it was not heard. Madame's husband was informing Madame in a loud voice that the most unfortunate day in his life was the occasion when he allowed her to drag him into a registrar's office. Gertie went back a few steps, and the maid repeated the name.
"You dear!" cried Madame, coming forward pleasantly. "This is my husband. You know him by name, I expect." She whispered, "The celebrated river painter. Most successful. And such a worker. Never idle for a moment."