Part 7

I wouldn't let him blame Madame; but I couldn't defend her without risking danger for Ellaline and myself, because Madame's arrangements were all perfect, if we hadn't secretly upset them. "I have so little luggage," I broke in, trying to make up with emphasis for irrelevancy. "And Madame considers me quite a grown-up person, I assure you."

"I suppose you are," he admitted, observing my inches with a worried air. "I ought to have realized; but somehow or other I expected to find a child."

"I shall be less bother to you than if I were a child," I consoled him.

This did make him smile again, for some reason, as he replied that he wasn't sure. And we were starting to hook ourselves on to the tail end of the dwindling procession, quite on friendly terms, when to my horror that young English cadlet--or boundling, which you will--strolled calmly out in front of us, and said, "How do you do, Sir Lionel Pendragon? I'm afraid you don't remember me. Dick Burden. Anyhow, you'll recollect my mother and aunt."

I had forgotten all about the creature, dearest; but there he had been lurking, ready to pounce. And what bad luck that he should know Ellaline's guardian, wasn't it?

At first I thought maybe he really had had business at the Gare de Lyon, and that I'd partly misjudged him. And then it flashed into my head that, on the contrary, he didn't really know Sir Lionel, but had overheard the name, and was doing a "bluff" to get introduced to me. Wasn't that a conceited idea? But neither was true. At least the latter wasn't, I know, and I'm pretty sure the first wasn't. What I think, is this: that he simply followed me to the Gare de Lyon for the "deviltry" of the thing, and because he'd nothing better to do. That he hung about in sheer curiosity, to see whom I was meeting; and that he recognized the Dragon as an old acquaintance. I once fondly supposed coincidences were remarkable and rare events, but I've known ever since I've known the troubles of life that it's only agreeable ones which are rare, such as coming across your long-lost millionaire-uncle who's decided to leave you all his money, just as you'd made up your mind to commit suicide or marry a Jewish diamond merchant. Disagreeable coincidences sit about on damp clouds ready to fall on you the minute they think you don't expect them, and they're more likely to occur than not. That's my experience. Evidently the Dragon did remember Dick's mother and aunt, for the first blankness of his expression brightened into intelligence with the mention of the youth's female belongings. He held out his hand cordially, and remarked that of course he remembered Mrs. Burden and Mrs. Senter. As for Dick, he had grown out of all recollection.

"It was a good many years ago," returned the said Dick, hastening to disprove the slur of youthfulness. "It was just before I went to Sandhurst. But you haven't changed. I knew you at once."

"On leave, I suppose?" suggested Sir Lionel.

"No," said Dick, "I'm not in the army. Failed. Truth is, I didn't want to get in. Wasn't cut out for it. There's only one profession I care for."

"What's that?" the Dragon was obliged to ask, out of politeness, though I don't think he cared much.

"The fact is," returned Mr. Burden (a most appropriate name, according to my point of view), "it's rather a queer one, or might seem so to you, and I've promised the mater I won't talk of it unless I do adopt it. And I'm over here qualifying, now."

It was easy to see that he hoped he'd excited our curiosity; and he must have been disappointed in Sir Lionel's half-hearted "Indeed?" As for me, I tried to make my eyes look like boiled gooseberries, an unenthusiastic fruit, especially when cooked. I was delighted with the Dragon, though, for not introducing him.

Having said "indeed," Sir Lionel added that we must be getting on--luggage to see to; his valet a foreigner, and more bother than use. I took my cue, and pattered along by my guardian's side, his tall form a narrow yet impassable bulwark between me and Mr. Dick Burden. But Mr. D. B. pattered too, refusing to be thrown off.

He asked Sir Lionel if he were staying on in Paris; and in the short conversation that followed I picked up morsels of news which hadn't been given me yet. It appeared that the Dragon's sister (who would suspect a dragon of sisters?) had wired to Marseilles that she would meet him in Paris, and he "expected to find her at an hotel." He didn't say what hotel, so it was evident Mr. Dick Burden need not hope for an invitation to call. Apparently our plans depended somewhat on her, but Sir Lionel "thought we should get away next day at latest." There was nothing to keep him in Paris, and he was in a hurry to reach England. I was glad to hear that, for fear some more coincidences might happen, such as meeting Madame de Maluet or one of the teachers holiday-making. Conscience does make you a coward! I never noticed mine much before. I wish you could take anti-conscience powders, as you do for neuralgia. Wouldn't they sell like hot cakes?

At last Mr. Dick Burden had to go away without getting the introduction he wanted, and Sir Lionel was either very absent-minded or else very obstinate not to give it, I'm not sure which; but if I were a betting character I should bet on the latter. I begin to see that his dragon-ness may be expected to leak out in his attitude toward Woman as a Sex. Already I've detected the most primitive, almost primaeval, ideas in him, which probably he contracted in Bengal. Would you believe it, he insisted on my putting on a veil to travel with?--but I haven't come to that part yet.

As for Mr. Burden, as I said, he disappeared from our view; but I doubt if we disappeared from his. You may think this is conceited in me, but, as he took off his Panama in saying good-bye, he contrived to peer at me round an unfortified corner of the Dragon, and the look he flung me said more plainly than words: "This is all right, but I'm hanged if I don't see it through," or something even more emphatic to that effect.

Sir Lionel was surprised when he saw my luggage, which we picked up when he'd claimed his own.

"I thought young ladies never went anywhere without a dozen boxes," said he.

"Oh, mamma and I travelled half over Europe with only one trunk and two bags between us," I blurted out, before I stopped to think. Then I wished the floor would yawn and swallow me up.

He did stare!--and his eyes are dreadfully piercing when he stares. They are very nice-looking gray ones; but I can tell you they felt like hatpins.

"I should have thought you were too young in those days to know anything about luggage," said he.

That gave me a straw to clutch. "Madame de Maluet has told me a great deal." (So she has, about one thing or another; mostly my own faults.)

"Oh, I see," he said. It must have seemed funny to him, my saying that about the trunks, as Ellaline's mother died when E. was four.

He hadn't much luggage, either; no golf clubs, or battle-axes, or whatever you play about with in Bengal when you aren't terrorizing the natives. He sent the brown servant off in one cab with our things, and put me in another, into which he also mounted. It did seem funny driving off with him, for when I came to think of it, I was never alone with a man before; but he was gawkier about it than I was. Not exactly shy; I hardly know how to express it, but he couldn't help showing that he was out of his element.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, he'd shaken hands with the Mock Dragon, and shunted him off just as ruthlessly as he did the boy. "See you in London, sooner or later," said he. As if anyone could want to see such a disagreeable old thing! Yet, perhaps, if I but knew, the Mock Dragon's character may be the nobler of the two. If I were to judge by appearances, I should have liked the real Dragon's looks, and thought from first sight that he was rather a brave, fine, high-principled person, even unselfish. Whereas I know from all Ellaline has told me that his qualities are quite the reverse of these.

We were going to the Grand Hotel, and driving there he pumped up a few perfunctory sort of questions about school, the way grown-up people who don't understand children talk to little girls. You know: "Do you like your lessons? What do you do on holidays? What is your middle name?" sort of thing. I was afraid I should laugh, so I asked him questions instead; and all the time he seemed to be studying me in a puzzled, surprised way, as if I were a duck that had just stepped out of a chicken egg, or a goblin in a Nonconformist home. (If he keeps on doing this, I shall have to find out what he means by it, or burst.)

I asked him about his sister, as I thought Bengal might be a sore subject, and he appeared to think that I already knew something of her. If Ellaline does know, she forgot to tell me; and I hope other things like that won't be continually cropping up, or my nerves won't stand it. I shall take to throwing spoons and tea-cups.

He reminded me of her name being Mrs. Norton, and that she's a widow. He hadn't expected her to come over, he said, and he was surprised to get her telegram, but no doubt he'd find out that she'd a pretty good reason. And it was nothing to be astonished at, her not meeting him at the Gare de Lyon, for she invariably missed people when she went to railway stations. It had been a characteristic of hers since youth. When they were both young they were often in Paris together, for they had French cousins (Ellaline's mother's people, I suppose), and then they stopped at the Grand Hotel. He hadn't been there, though, he added, for nearly twenty years; and had been out of England, without coming back, for fifteen. That made him seem old, talking of what happened twenty years ago--almost my whole life. Yet he doesn't look more than thirty-five at most. I wonder does the climate of Bengal preserve people, like flies in amber? Perhaps he's really sixty, and has this unnatural appearance of youth.