“And you have no roof to shelter you from the cold and rain?”
After the manner of her kind the woman assured her that such was the fact. She put her head on one side, wheedling in the time-honoured way.
“If you would help a poor woman with a shilling or two, kind lady—”
“A shilling or two?” Stella's voice broke into a cracked falsetto. “You shall have pounds and pounds. I 'll see that you don't die of starvation. I have no money to give you,—I've scarcely ever seen any,—but I have thousands of pounds in the house, and you shall have them all. If I could only walk, I would ask some one to fetch them to you. But I can't walk. I've never been able to walk all my life. You see, I 'm tied here till my maid comes for me. What can I do?” She wrung her hands, desperately, stirred to the roots of her being.
“Never walked?” said the woman, taken aback, the elementary human fact appealing more to her dulled senses than the phantasmagorical promise of wealth. “Lor'! Poor young lady! I 'd sooner be as I am, Miss, than not be able to walk. And such a sweet young lady!” Then the gleam of the divine being spent, she said, “Can't you call anybody, Miss?”
But there was no need to call anybody; for one of the maids, having caught sight of the intruder through a window of the house, came flying down the path, a protecting flutter of apron-strings.
“What do you mean by coming in here? Go away at once! We have nothing to do with tramps. Be off with you!”
She was breathless, excited, indignant.
“Hold your tongue, Mary!” cried Stella in a tone so unfamiliar that it petrified the simple maid. “How dare you interfere between me and the person I am talking to?” It must be remembered that Stella was of mortal clay. She had her faults, like the rest of us. She was born and bred a princess, an autocrat, a despot, a tyrant. And here was one of the white-hot moments of life when the princess was the princess and the tyrant the tyrant. The new commotion brought the old dog again to his feet. For the only time in her life she struck him in anger, though physically he felt it as much as the fall of an autumn leaf.
“Down, Constable, down!” And turning to the maid: “Wheel my chair into the drawing-room and ask Lady Blount to come to me. You follow us!” she commanded the tramp.