A Voyage of Consolation Part 11

"Then may I inquire if you fulfilled it?"

"I didn't, Mrs. Portheris," said I. I was very red, but not so red as Mr. Mafferton. "Circ.u.mstances interfered." I was prepared for an inquiry as to what the circ.u.mstances were, and privately made up my mind that Mrs. Portheris was too distant a relation to be gratified with such information in the publicity of the Eiffel Tower. But she merely looked at me with suspicion, and said it was much better that young people should discover their unsuitability to one another before marriage than after. "I can conceive nothing more shocking than divorce," said Mrs.

Portheris, and her tone indicated that I had probably narrowly escaped it.

We were rather a large party as we made our way to the elevator, and I found myself behind the others in conversation with d.i.c.ky Dod. It was a happiness to come thus unexpectedly upon d.i.c.ky Dod--he gave forth all that is most exhilarating in our democratic civilisation, and he was in excellent spirits. As the young lady of Mrs. Portheris's party joined us I thought I found a barometric reading in Mr. Dod's countenance that explained the situation. "I remember you," she said shyly, and there was something in this innocent audacity and the blush which accompanied it that helped me to remember her too. "You came to see mamma in Half Moon-street once. I am Isabel."

"Dear me!" I replied, "so you are. I remember--you had to go upstairs, hadn't you. Please don't mind," I went on hastily as Isabel looked distressed, "you couldn't help it. I was very unexpected, and I might have been dangerous. How--how you've _grown_!" I really couldn't think of anything else to say.

Isabel blushed again, d.i.c.ky observing with absorbed adoration. It _was_ lovely colour. "You know I haven't really," she said, "it's all one's long frocks and doing up one's hair, you know."

"Miss Portheris only came out two months ago," remarked Mr. Dod, with the effect of announcing that Venus had just arisen from the foam.

"Come, young people," Mrs. Portheris exclaimed from the lift; "we are waiting for you." Poppa and momma and Mr. Mafferton were already inside.

Mrs. Portheris stood in the door. As Isabel entered, I saw that Mr. Dod was making the wildest efforts to communicate something to me with his left eye.

"Come, young people," repeated Mrs. Portheris.

"Do you think it's safe for so many?" asked d.i.c.ky doubtfully. "Suppose anything should _give_, you know!"

Mrs. Portheris looked undecided. Momma, from the interior, immediately proposed to get out.

"Safe as a church," remarked the Senator.

"What _do_ you mean, Dod?" demanded Mr. Mafferton.

"Well, it's like this," said d.i.c.ky; "Miss Wick is rather nervous about overcrowding, and I think it's better to run no risks myself. You all go down, and we'll follow you next trip. See?"

"I suppose you will hardly allow _that_, Mrs. Wick," said our relation, with ominous portent.

"_Est ce que vous voulez a descendre, monsieur?_" inquired the official attached to the elevator, with some impatience.

"I don't see what there is to object to--I suppose it _would_ be safer,"

momma replied anxiously, and the official again demanded if we were going down.

"Not this trip, thank you," said d.i.c.ky, and turned away. Mrs. Portheris, who had taken her seat, rose with dignity. "In that case," said she, "I also will remain at the top;" but her determination arrived too late.

With a ferocious gesture the little official shut the door and gave the signal, and Mrs. Portheris sank earthwards, a vision of outraged propriety. I felt sorry for momma.

"And now," I inquired of Mr. Dod, "why was the elevator not safe?"

"I'll tell you," said d.i.c.ky. "Do you know Mrs. Portheris well?"

"Very slightly indeed," I replied.

"Not well enough to--sort of chum up with our party, I suppose."

"Not for worlds," said I.

d.i.c.ky looked so disconsolate that I was touched.

"Still," I said, "you'd better trot out the circ.u.mstances, d.i.c.ky. We haven't forgotten what you did in your humble way, you know, at election time. I can promise for the family that we'll do anything we can. You mustn't ask us to poison her, but we might lead her into the influenza."

"It's this way," said Mr. Dod. "How remarkably contracted the Place de la Concorde looks down there, doesn't it! It's like looking through the wrong end of an opera gla.s.s."

"I've observed that," I said. "It won't be fair to keep them waiting _very_ long down there on the earth, you know, d.i.c.ky."

"Certainly not! Well, as I was saying, your poppa's Aunt Caroline is a perfect fiend of a chaperone. By Jove, Mamie, let's be silhouetted!"

"Poppa was silhouetted," I said, "and the artist turned him out the image of Senator Frye. Now he doesn't resemble Senator Frye in the least degree. The elevator is ascending, Richard."

Richard blushed and looked intently at the horizon beyond Montmartre.

"You see, between Miss Portheris and me, it's this way," he began recklessly, but with the vision before my eyes of momma on the steps below wanting her tea, I cut him short.

"So far as you are concerned, d.i.c.ky, I see the way it is," I interposed sympathetically. "The question is----"

"Exactly. So it is. About Isabel. But I can't find out. It seems to be so difficult with an English girl. Doesn't seem to think such a thing as a--a proposal exists. Now an American girl is just as ready----"

"Richard," I interrupted severely, "the circ.u.mstances do not require international comparisons. By the way, how do you happen to be travelling with--with Mr. Mafferton?"

"That's exactly where it comes in," Mr. Dod exclaimed luminously. "You'd think, the way Mafferton purrs round the old lady, he'd been a friend of the family from the beginning of time! Fact is, he met them two days before they left London. _I_ had known them a good month, and the venerable one seemed to take to me considerably. There wasn't a cab she wouldn't let me call, nor a box at the theatre she wouldn't occupy, nor a supper she wouldn't try to enjoy. Used to ask me to tea. Inquired whether I was High or Low. That was awful, because I had to chance it, being Congregational, but I hit it right--she's Low, too, strong. Isabel always made the tea out of a canister the old lady kept locked. Singular habit that, locking tea up in a canister."

"You are wandering, d.i.c.ky," I said. "And Isabel used to ask you whether you would have m.u.f.fins or brown bread and b.u.t.ter--I know. Go on."

"Girls _have_ intuition," remarked Mr. Dod with a glance of admiration which I discounted with contempt. "Well, then old Mafferton turned up here a week ago. Since then I haven't been waltzing in as I did before.

Old lady seems to think there's a chance of keeping the family pure English--seems to think she'd like it better--see? At least, I take it that way; he's cousin to a lord," d.i.c.k added dejectedly, "and you know financially I've been coming through a cold season."

"It's awkward," I admitted, "but old ladies of no family are like that over here. I know Mrs. Portheris is an old lady of no family, because she's a connection of ours, you see. What about Isabel? Can't you tell the least bit?"

"How can a fellow? She blushes just as much when he speaks to her as when I do."

"But are you quite sure," I asked delicately, "whether Mr. Mafferton is--interested?"

"There's the worst kind of danger of it," d.i.c.ky replied impressively. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you, but the fact is Mafferton's just got the sack--I beg your pardon--just been _congeed_ himself. They say she was an American and it was a bad case; she behaved most unfeelingly."

"You shouldn't believe all you hear," I said, "but I don't see what that has to do with it."

"Why, he's just in the mood to console himself. What fellow would think twice of being thrown over, if Miss Portheris were the alternative!"

"It depends, d.i.c.ky," I observed. "You are jumping at conclusions."

"What I hoped," he went on regretfully as we took our places in the elevator, "was that we might travel together a bit and that you wouldn't mind just now and then taking old Mafferton off our hands, you know."

"d.i.c.ky," I said, as we swiftly descended, "here is our itinerary.

Genoa, you see, then Pisa, Rome, Naples, Rome again, Florence, Venice, Verona, up through the lakes to Switzerland, and so on. We leave to-morrow. If we _should_ meet again, I don't promise to undertake it personally, but I'll see what momma can do."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Breakfast with d.i.c.ky Dod.]