“Oh, not in the hands of an adroit and respectable cheesemonger’s assistant.”
“Vincent,” said my sister, severely, “don’t be cynical, or I’ll do nothing.”
All the same, she knew what I said was true. Men would, I believe, always be faithful if only they could feel there was anything really to be faithful to. But they meet an angel at an evening party, and then, when they go to call, they find the angel fled and the most ordinary young person in her place; one scarcely capable of inspiring a school-boy in the fifth form to the mediocre height of the most ordinary verse-power.
But with Lucy! Sympathetic readers don’t, I am sure, look for protestations from me where she’s concerned. At least, not now.
The end of our talk was, it was arranged between us Lucy should go on board the Amaranth in the morning and there remain.
And the next morning there she was comfortably installed, and already looking forward to the Friday evening, when she was told we were going to make a move out of harbor, and probably go home by way of the Italian coast, and possibly by rail from Venice.
Everything else was kept from her carefully, which is, I think, the worst of an adventure of this kind; one is driven to subterfuge even with those one loves best.
CHAPTER XVII
ENTER MR. BAILEY THOMPSON—VAN GINKEL STANDS BY US—WE SHOW THOMPSON ROUND AND EXPLAIN DETAILS—TEDDY PARSONS’S ALARM
The Bailey Thompson problem confronted us in propriâ personâ that very same afternoon, the Thursday, at about half-past four, when, as we were some of us sitting outside the Café de Paris at tea, I saw him strolling round the central flower-beds in front of the rooms. He wore one of the new soft straw hats, a black frock-coat, tan shoes, and the invariable dog-skin gloves, and over his arm he carried a plaid shawl. In short, he looked like what he was, Scotland Yard en voyage.