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It seems very evident that the telegram was a warning to Leithcourt of the man Chater's intention of calling, and that the last-named was shown in just at the moment when the fugitive was on the point of leaving." "Chater." I echoed. "Do you know his Christian name?" "Hylton Chater. He is apparently a gentleman.
"That is curious," I remarked, recollecting the hurried departure from Rannoch. "They've made it up, I suppose?" "They never quarreled, to my knowledge." "Then why did Leithcourt leave Scotland so hurriedly on Chater's arrival? You know all about the affair, of course?" He nodded, saying with a grim smile, "Yes; I know. The party up there must have been a very interesting one.
Gazing through the cab window, pressed into her corner, the girl felt herself friendless, outcast, alone. Again she told herself that she did not want Mrs. Chater's sympathy; yet it was the studied withholding of it studied or callous because so natural, the merest conventionalism, to have asked, "Were you hurt?" that made her acutely feel her position.
A violent dispute with the cabman set that disturbed heart yet more wildly thumping in Mrs. Chater's bosom; the sight of her husband uneasily mooning in the dining-room heated her wrath to wilder bubblings. Mr. Chater a 'oly dam' terror in Mincing Lane, if his office-boy may be quoted was an astonishingly mild man in his own house.
Chater's nerves, plunged her into such vortex of hysteria, that the manner of her reception of Mary was true reflection of her fears, nothing dissembled. Withdrawing her agitated face from the dining-room window as Mary and the children approached, she bounded heavily to the door; flung it ajar; collapsed to her knees upon the mat; clasped David and Angela to that heaving bosom.
With a glare of defiance into Mrs. Chater's stormy eyes, my Mary stooped over David. "David!" The calm ring of the tones he had learned to obey checked his clamour, his plunging kicks. She stooped; kissed him. "Be good as gold," she commanded. "Promise." "Good as gold yes p'omise," David choked. Angela was given, and gave, the magic formula. Mary stepped back. Susan slammed the door.
I thought I was going to be killed." "You were with a young man." "He caught me." The words came faintly. Nearly the girl was crying. That lump in her throat seemed to be squeezing tears from her eyes silly tears. She did not want Mrs. Chater's sympathy, yet could not but reflect what disregard for her the utter absence of inquiry showed. Bitter thoughts yet more dangerously squeezed the tears.
"Was it Leithcourt who did that?" he asked dubiously. "I think not. It was another of the guests who was Chater's bitterest enemy. But Philip Leithcourt took advantage of the fracas in order to make believe that he had fled because of Chater's arrival. Ah!" he added, "you haven't any idea of their ruses. They are amazing!"
Bob Chater's existence; she was the magnet that drew Bob, ignorant of George; George sped to his Mary and had no thought of Bob. Our young men were handicapped in point of distance. Mary, with but a short half-mile to go, must easily be first to make the seat; Bob, coming to town from a week-end up the river, would occupy little short of an hour.
Mary had from him such a rose at their every meeting. She might not wear it back to Palace Gardens it would not flourish beneath Mrs. Chater's curiosity; but while they were together she would tuck it in her bosom, and George tenderly would bear it home and set it in a vase before him to lend him inspiration as he worked.
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