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The lease of the little house at Ealing was out at Michaelmas; he had the five pounds provided every quarter by the furniture. He sold his furniture and the last of his books, but when Dicky's bill fell due in November he was still fifty pounds to the bad.
"I know Dicky's sensitive nature, and it is just as likely as not that he would take you at your word. And I will not elope with you alone." I need not have been alarmed. Isabel had no intention of reducing the party at the last moment. I listened for protests and hesitations when they met, but all I heard was, "Have you got the bag?" Dicky had the bag, the tickets, the places, everything.
Mann was anything but glad to hear Dicky's "good news." She was a timid little woman, with a horror of all fighting. Mr. Mann took Dicky by the hand, however, and said, "God bless you, son," in a way that made Dicky feel closer to his father than he had ever been before. Jimmy Hill's mother was away from home. Mr. Hill took the information as a matter of course.
I was not at all sure of Dicky's fidelity, in spite of his seeming earnestness, but I forbore to mention my doubts, and left the garrulous young man to go his way while I turned to the office that had been furnished by Doddridge Knapp. I hardly expected to meet the King of the Street.
To say that Deena missed him but feebly expresses the void his going made in her life, but, knowing her own heart, and suspecting the state of his, she was glad to be spared his presence in these early days of widowhood, and could not but approve his decision. Dicky's society was hardly calculated to stifle her longings for higher things, for his conduct called for constant repression.
Whether this state of affairs was due to Dicky's wishes or her own subtle planning I could not determine. I struggled hard with myself to treat the girl with friendliness, but found it impossible. My manner toward her held as much reserve as was compatible with formal courtesy. Of course, this did not please Dicky. Dicky was also developing an unusual sense of punctuality.
"I suppose you are the bride Dicky's been hiding away so jealously." She looked me up and down as if I were on exhibition and turning to Dicky said. "Pretty good taste, Dicky, but I don't imagine that your old friends will see much of you from now on." "That's where you're wrong, Lil," returned Dicky easily. "We're going to have you all up some night soon."
He found a letter from Dicky Pilkington waiting for him at the hotel. Dicky's subtlety seemed to have divined his scruples, for he gave him the information he most wanted in terms whose terseness left very little room for uncertainty. "Look sharp," wrote Dicky, "and let me know if you've made up your great mind about that library.
Then Dicky's smile came back again, for he knew that the hours of his captivity were numbered; and he hummed, in time with the sentry's tread: "They're hanging men and women now, For lacking of the green." So, that night Dicky sat by the window of the room over his shop and his little saint sat close by, working at something silken and dainty. Dicky was thoughtful and grave.
With the addition of a dirty cap, found on the floor at the foot of the bed, and a pair of coarse boots, one without a heel, that were discovered in the cupboard in the kitchen, Dicky's disguise was complete. Given a plentiful application of dirt on face and hands, and a couple of days' growth of stubble on his chin, no one could have imagined him a smart young officer.
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