Lord Loveland Discovers America Part 43

"Completely."

"How very odd that you didn't read the papers," exclaimed Lesley.

"I was so disgusted with the way New York was treating me that I wasn't very keen to see what it was saying of me. Besides, as I told you, I thought I _did_ know. I supposed it was all about the hotel fuss, and my knocking down that man Milton."

"Why _did_ you knock him down?"

"I slapped him in the face, and he fell down."

"But why did you slap him in the face?"

"I can't tell you that, Miss Dearmer."

"Well," said Lesley, looking at him always from under her lashes to see how he was taking her words, "you've been dreadfully punished, at all events."

"I don't think I deserved punishment for that."

"Don't you? Of course I don't know anything about _that_, but you used to be--well, rather arrogant."

"I'm not arrogant now." Loveland smiled faintly. "I'm almost inclined to think I never shall be again."

"If you're not really Lord Loveland----"

"Not really----" He almost gasped, as he would have repeated her words.

It had not occurred to him, even while he read the cutting, that Lesley Dearmer could possibly think him a fraud. "What--you--you--don't believe in me?" he stammered. "_You?_"

Apparently she was untouched by the reproach, the actual consternation in his voice.

"Why should _I_ believe, more than anyone else?" she asked with a little dainty, sidewise turn of her head. "I was only a s.h.i.+p acquaintance, you know--like the others."

"Like the others who threw me over," he said.

"Yes, like the others. There was no difference--was there?" she challenged him.

But Loveland was in no mood to take up the gauntlet, if it were a gauntlet that she threw down.

"I suppose not," he answered from the depths.

"You valued almost all your other acquaintances on board more than you did me," the girl went on. "You were quite frank about that. By your own admission, you were a bit of an adventurer, coming over to my country to see what you could devour. I used to hate that in you--all the more because I thought you a _t.i.tled_ adventurer. There was less excuse for a well brought up man, with every advantage of birth and education, than for----"

"Say it, Miss Dearmer. Say what you really think of me."

"I don't say I do think it. I say only, why should _I_ believe in you, when other people don't?"

"I see now, there's _no_ reason. And I'm not going to ask you to believe."

"You're not going to a.s.sure me that you are the real Lord Loveland?"

"No, I'm not. I'm not going to a.s.sert myself, or defend myself in any way--to you. I want you to draw your own conclusions."

"Very well," said Lesley, with sparkling eyes. "I do draw them."

"May I ask what they are?"

"You may ask, but I'm not going to answer your question just now. There are other questions to attend to, which we've dropped for this subject.

About 'Lord Bob,' for instance."

"I've no excuse to offer, even for stealing your friend's play, except that--we were hard up, and we saw nothing else to do."

"Your people in England, if----"

"I've had no answer to my cablegrams. There's no time for answers to have come to letters, yet."

"I see. Meanwhile?----"

"Meanwhile, we're on our beam ends."

"You say 'we.' You identify yourself with these people--these poor little stranded actors?"

"Oh, yes, I'm one of them. A poor little stranded actor, too."

"You're not going to desert them?"

"No. We'll sink or swim together. You see, I've got rather fond of two of the 'poor little stranded actors'--my companions in misery; Ed Binney, who's very ill, really, and oughtn't to be acting--a good fellow, if ever there was one; and Miss de Lisle, the star----"

Lesley's face changed slightly, and her lips opened, but she did not speak.

"Who will perhaps some day marry a great friend of mine in New York."

"Oh! So you have a friend in New York?"

"Yes, one. He paints menus in the Twelfth Street Restaurant where I was a waiter."

"How you have changed!" exclaimed Lesley. "But perhaps it's only circ.u.mstances?"

"Perhaps," said Loveland.

"If I knew a way in which you could help your actor friends to escape from here and go--wherever they want to go, would you take it, I wonder?" asked the girl.

"I don't wonder. I'm sure," Loveland answered, thinking of poor little Lillie, "Bill's gal," and Ed Binney.

"It's a way that would be very 'infra dig,'" Lesley hesitated.

Loveland laughed. "What is 'infra dig'? I've forgotten."

"Oh, if you have, I'll tell you the way at once, and perhaps that will bring it back to your memory. Would you care to take a position in somebody's house as--as--well, a paid position with an advance on your salary, by which you could send all your friends happily away?"

"I'd do it like a shot--if anyone would have me," Loveland said quickly.