Cynthia's Chauffeur Part 11

"I have always been taught that in England the barrier of rank is being broken down more and more every day. Your society is the easiest in the world to enter. You tolerate people in the highest circles who would certainly suffer from cold feet if they showed up too prominently in New York or Philadelphia; isn't it rather out of fas.h.i.+on to be so exclusive?"

"Our aristocracy has such an a.s.sured position that it can afford to unbend," quoted the other.

"Oh, is that it? I heard my father say the other day that it has often made him tired to see the way in which some of your t.i.tled nonent.i.ties grovel before a Lithuanian Jew who is a power on the Rand. But unbending is a different thing to groveling, perhaps?"

Mrs. Devar sighed, yet she gave a moment's scrutiny to a wine-list brought by the head waiter.

"A small bottle of 61, please," she said in an undertone.

Then she sighed again, deprecating the Vanrenen directness.

"Unfortunately, my dear, few of our set can avoid altogether the wors.h.i.+p of the golden calf."

Cynthia thrust an obstinate chin into the argument.

"People will do things for bread and b.u.t.ter that they would shy at if independent," she said. "I can understand the calf proposition much more easily than the sn.o.bbishness that would forbid a gentleman like Fitzroy from eating a meal in the same apartment as his employers, simply because he earns money by driving an automobile."

In her earnestness, Cynthia had gone just a little beyond the bounds of fair comment, and Mrs. Devar was quick to seize the advantage thus offered.

"From some points of view, Fitzroy and I are in the same boat," she said quietly. "Still, I cannot agree that it is sn.o.bbish to regard a groom or a coachman as a social inferior. I have been told that there are several broken-down gentlemen driving omnibuses in London, but that is no reason why one should ask one of them to dinner, even though his taste in wine might be beyond dispute."

Cynthia had already regretted her impulsive outburst. Her vein of romance was imbedded in a rock of good sense, and she took the implied reproof penitently.

"I am afraid my sympathies rather ran away with my manners," she said.

"Please forgive me. I really didn't mean to charge you with being a sn.o.b. The absurdity of the statement carries its own refutation. I spoke in general terms, and I am willing to admit that I was wrong in asking the man to come here to-night. But the incident happened quite naturally. He mentioned the fact that he often stayed in the hotel as a boy----"

"Very probably," agreed Mrs. Devar cheerfully. "We are all subject to ups and downs. For my part, I was speaking _a la_ chaperon, my sole thought being to safeguard you from the disagreeable busy-bodies who misconstrue one's motives. And now, let us talk of something more amusing. You see that woman in old rose brocade--she is sitting with a bald-headed man at the third table on your left. Well, that is the Countess of Porthcawl, and the man with her is Roger Ducrot, the banker. Porthcawl is a most complaisant husband. He never comes within a thousand miles of Millicent. She is awfully nice; clever, and witty, and the rest of it--quite a man's woman. We are sure to meet her in the lounge after dinner and I will introduce you."

Cynthia said she would be delighted. Reading between the lines of Mrs.

Devar's description, it was not easy to comprehend the distinction that forbade friends.h.i.+p with Fitzroy while offering it with Millicent, Countess of Porthcawl. But the girl was resolved not to open a new rift. In her heart she longed for the day that would reunite her to her father; meanwhile, Mrs. Devar must be dealt with gently.

Despite its tame ending, this unctuous discussion on social ethics led to wholly unforeseen results.

The allusion to a possible pier at Bournemouth meant more than Mrs.

Devar imagined, but Cynthia resisted the allurements of another entrancing evening, went early to her room, and wrote duty letters for a couple of hours. The excuse served to cut short her share of the Countess's brilliant conversation, though Mr. Ducrot tried to make himself very agreeable when he heard the name of Vanrenen.

Medenham, standing in the hall, suddenly came face to face with Lady Porthcawl, who was endowed with an unerring eye for minute shades of distinction in the evening dress garments of the opposite s.e.x. Her correspondence consisted largely of picture postcards, and she had just purchased some stamps from the hall porter when she saw Medenham take a telegram from the rack where it had been reposing since the afternoon. It was, she knew, addressed to "Viscount Medenham." That, and her recollection of his father, banished doubt.

"George!" she cried, with a charming air of having found the one man whom she was longing to meet, "don't say I've grown so old that you have forgotten me!"

He started, rather more violently than might be looked for in a s.h.i.+kari whose nerves had been tested in many a ticklish encounter with other members of the cat tribe. In fact, he had just been disturbed by coming across the unexpected telegram, wherein Simmonds a.s.sured his lords.h.i.+p that the rejuvenated car would arrive at the College Green Hotel, Bristol, on Friday evening. At the very moment that he realized the imminence of Cynthia's disappearance into the void it was doubly disconcerting to be hailed by a woman who knew his world so intimately that it would be folly to smile vacantly at her presumed mistake.

Some glint of annoyance must have leaped to his eyes, for the lively countess glanced around with a mimic fright that testified to her skill as an actress.

"Good gracious!" she whispered, "have I given you away? I couldn't guess you were here under a _nom de voyage_--now, could I?--when that telegram has been staring at everybody for hours."

"You have misinterpreted my amazement, Lady Porthcawl," he said, spurred into self-possession by the hint at an intrigue. "I could not believe that time would turn back even for a pretty woman. You look younger than ever, though I have not seen you for----"

"Oh, hus.h.!.+" she cried. "Don't spoil your nice speech by counting years. When did you arrive in England? Are you alone--really? You've grown quite a man in your jungles. Will you come to the lounge? I want ever so much to have a long talk with you. Mr. Ducrot is there--the financier, you know--but I have left him safely anch.o.r.ed alongside Maud Devar--a soft-furred old p.u.s.s.ie who is clawing me now behind my back, I am sure. Have you ever met her? Wiggy Devar she was christened in Monte, because an excited German leaned over her at the tables one night and things happened to her coiffure. And to show you how broad-minded I am, I'll get her to bring downstairs the sweetest and daintiest American ingenue you'd find between here and Chicago, even if you went by way of Paris. Cynthia Vanrenen is her name, daughter of _the_ Vanrenen. He made, not a pile, but a pyramid, out of Milwaukees. She is _it_--a pukka Gibson girl, quite ducky, with the dearest bit of an accent, and Mamma Devar is gadding around with her in a mo-car. Do come!"

Medenham was able to pick and choose where he listed in answering this hail of words.

"I'm awfully sorry," he said, "but the telegram I have just received affects all my plans. I must hurry away this instant. When will you be in town? Then I shall call, praying meanwhile that there may be no Ducrots or Devars there to blight a glorious gossip. If you bring me up to date as to affairs in Park Lane I'll reciprocate about the giddy equator. How--or perhaps I ought to say where--is Porthcawl?"

"In China," snapped her ladys.h.i.+p, fully alive to Medenham's polite evasion of her blandishments.

"By gad," he laughed, "that is a long way from Bournemouth. Well, good-bye. Keep me a date in Clarges Street."

"Clarges Street is off the map," she said coldly. "It's South Belgravia, verging on Pimlico, nowadays. That is why Porthcawl is in China ... and it explains Ducrot, too."

An unconscious bitterness crept into the smooth voice; Medenham, who hated confidences from the b.u.t.terfly type of woman, nevertheless pitied her.

"Tell me where you live and I'll come round and hear all about it," he said sympathetically.

She gave him an address, and suddenly smiled on him with a yearning tenderness. She watched his tall figure as he strode down the hill towards the town to keep an imaginary appointment.

"He used to be a nice boy," she sighed, "and now he is a man....

Heigh-ho, you're a back number, Millie, dear!"

But she was her own bright self when she returned to the bald-headed Ducrot and the bewigged Mrs. Devar.

"What a small world it is!" she vowed. "I ran across Medenham in the hall."

The banker's s.h.i.+ning forehead wrinkled in a reflective frown.

"Medenham?" he said.

"Fairholme's eldest son."

Mrs. Devar chortled.

"Such fun!" she said. "Our chauffeur calls himself George Augustus Fitzroy."

"How odd!" agreed Countess Millicent.

"You people speak in riddles. Who or what is odd?" asked Ducrot.

"Oh, don't worry, but listen to that adorable waltz." Ducrot's polished dome compared badly with the bronzed skin of the nice boy who had grown to be a man, so her ladys.h.i.+p's rebellious tongue sought safety in silence, since she could not afford to quarrel with him.

It is certainly true that the G.o.ds make mad those whom they mean to destroy. Never was woman nearer to a momentous discovery than Mrs.

Devar at that instant, but her active brain was plotting how best to develop a desirable acquaintance in Roger Ducrot, financier, and she missed utterly the astounding possibility that Viscount Medenham and George Augustus Fitzroy might be one and the same person.

In any other conditions Millicent Porthcawl's sharp wits could scarcely have failed to ferret out the truth. Even if Cynthia were present it was almost a foregone conclusion that the girl would have told how Fitzroy joined her. The luncheon provided for a missing aunt, the crest on the silver and linen, the style of the Mercury, a chance allusion to this somewhat remarkable chauffeur's knowledge of the South Downs and of Bournemouth, would surely have put her ladys.h.i.+p on the right track. From sheer enjoyment of an absurd situation she would have caused Fitzroy to be summoned then and there, if only to see Wiggy Devar's crestfallen face on learning that she had entertained a viscount unawares.

But the violins were singing the Valse Bleu, and Cynthia was upstairs, longing for an excuse to venture forth into the night, and three people, at least, in the crowded lounge were thinking of anything but the amazing oddity that had puzzled Ducrot, who did not con his Burke.

Medenham, of course, realized that he had been vouchsafed another narrow escape. What the morrow might bring forth he neither knew nor cared. The one disconcerting fact that already shaped itself in the mists of the coming day was Simmonds tearing breathlessly along the Bath Road during the all too brief hours between morn and evening.

It is not to be wondered at if he read Cynthia's thoughts. There is a language without code or symbol known to all young men and maidens--a language that pierces stout walls and leaps wide valleys--and that unlettered tongue whispered the hope that the girl might saunter towards the pier. He turned forthwith into the public gardens, and quickened his pace. Arrived at the pier, he glanced up at the hotel.