A Butterfly on the Wheel Part 16

"About getting on the wrong train?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "We all got on the wrong train and we all stayed the night at this hotel"]

"Yes--and----"

Peggy pressed home her questions. She would not understand. "What else?"

she said.

"We all stayed the night at this hotel," Lord Ellerdine remarked.

"Did we?" Peggy asked.

"Yes," he said--"no! Oh! But it is best to be prepared."

"I see," Peggy said at last. "What a dull creature I am! Dear me! how stupid I didn't see it before! You have all made it up to put me right.

You and Alice didn't go to Switzerland--you came on to Paris. You and Alice didn't get to Chalons and come on here by the slow train--you stayed here _all_ night. I see. Now, that's so kind and thoughtful of you all! But for whom is this delightful story?"

"d.i.c.ky's scruples," Collingwood said hurriedly.

"I see. d.i.c.ky wanted it, did he?" Peggy replied. "Well, d.i.c.ky, I hope your moral sensibilities are quite satisfied. We all got on the wrong train and we all stayed the night at this hotel."

"Quite so," Ellerdine said quickly; "just a short, straight, simple tale, ready for any emergency."

"And what emergency do you _expect_?"

"Dearest Peggy, none at all," Lady Attwill said, with a note of anxious affection in her voice.

"I see. I understand. But don't you think the tale will need a lot of corroboration?"

"But only if someone questions it."

"Oh!" Peggy said, and there was a world of meaning in the exclamation.

"You see," Lord Ellerdine went on anxiously--"you see, it's all right, Peggy. We have left nothing to chance."

Lady Attwill nodded. "Nothing at all," she said, echoing her friend.

Peggy looked at them each in turn. Her sweet and youthful face bore little trace of what she had gone through the night before; and though her head was throbbing and her nerves were all jangling and raw, her freshness and purity of countenance remained absolutely unimpaired.

Beside her Alice Attwill suddenly seemed to have grown old.

She looked at them each in turn with grave contemplation--lastly at Collingwood. "And what do you think about it, Colling?" she asked at length. "Don't you think that we are a precious set of fools? No--that's unkind of me. Not you, Alice. Not you, d.i.c.ky. I am the precious fool.

Fool! Why, I should have been in cap and bells! A thing to make the whole world laugh. For only the fool will ask for an explanation--the wise, if they ask, will look on the explanation as the better part of the joke. But tell me, d.i.c.ky, why is the explanation necessary?"

"Oh! Come, Peggy, come. Confound it!" Lord Ellerdine blundered out. "It _looks_ so deuced bad."

Peggy made a grimace at him. "Candid!" she said. "Now that was frank.

'It _looks_ so deuced bad.' That's it. Looks! But only _looks_. What do you think, Colling? Can't we tell the truth? Is there anything to hide?"

"Nothing," Collingwood said.

"There," Peggy went on; "there's nothing to hide."

"Oh, we all know that," Lord Ellerdine said hastily.

Peggy's rising temper almost got the better of her. "Then why the explanation--the 'short, straight, simple tale'? Why not the truth?"

She clenched her hands, and an angry light burned in her eyes. "Oh! I'll leave you for a moment. I must go out. This place is stifling! We ought all to be out in the air. We'll grow mouldy in here--plotting. Alice, I'll put on my hat. Colling, you must invent another tale to satisfy d.i.c.ky's scruples. Think it over."

She tore out of the room into her own and shut the door with a rather vicious slam.

"Well, I'm jiggered!" Lord Ellerdine said.

Lady Attwill nodded with a slight tightening of the lips. "I told you she was upset," she answered.

Collingwood rose from the table and went towards his own room.

"Well, d.i.c.ky," he said, "I have done the best I can to satisfy you. I'll get my hat and take Peggy for a walk and talk it over." And he also left the room.

"Well," Ellerdine remarked, "this comes of thinking of your friends." He went to the fireplace and gazed rather gloomily at the glowing logs.

"May the devil take me if I ever care a d.a.m.n again what folks think of 'em," he went on.

Alice Attwill went up to the window. "d.i.c.ky, it is very strange," she said. "I have never seen Peggy in that nasty mood before."

"I've a jolly good mind to think the worst has happened," the man remarked.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, anyway, Colling is not in Peggy's good books," she said, and, pulling one of the large windows open, she stepped out upon the balcony.

Lord Ellerdine was left alone. His face was grave and perplexed; but seeing the _Matin_ lying on the sofa, where Lady Attwill had dropped it before breakfast, he went up, sat down, and was soon immersed in the news of the day.

There came a light tap upon the door leading into the corridor, which was flung open immediately afterwards. Jacques stood there holding the door open.

"Mr. Admaston," he said in a loud, clear voice.

CHAPTER V

A Thunderbolt cras.h.i.+ng through the roof of the hotel could not have startled Lord Ellerdine more than the waiter's announcement:

"Mr. Admaston."

He dropped the paper, sprang to his feet as if someone had struck him, while his face grew absolutely white and the little mouth became a round "O" of consternation and alarm.

George Admaston walked slowly into the room.

He was a big man of about forty years of age, very quiet in manner, and with a strong, resolute face. The eyes were grey and steadfast, and wore that look which some people mistake for abstraction, but which is anything but that. They had the expression of one who thinks often and much. The finely chiselled mouth was set somewhat grimly, and there was great force and a.s.sertiveness about the slightly forward thrust of the ma.s.sive chin. He was dressed in quiet grey tweeds, carried a bowler hat in his hand and a light coat over his arm.