delicately made—made in the form of a banknote, several sovereigns, some loose silver, and two coppers, the whole contents of her purse, neatly disposed by Mrs. Medwin on one of the tiny tables. It seemed to clear the air for deeper intimacies, the fruit of which was that Mamie, lonely after all in her crowd and always more helpful than helped, eventually brought out that the way Scott had been going on was what seemed momentarily to overshadow her own power to do so.
“I’ve had a descent from him.” But she had to explain. “My half-brother—Scott Homer. A wretch.”
“What kind of a wretch?”
“Every kind. I lose sight of him at times—he disappears abroad. But he always turns up again, worse than ever.”
“Violent?”
“No.”
“Maudlin?”
“No.”
“Only unpleasant?”
“No. Rather pleasant. Awfully clever—awfully travelled and easy.”
“Then what’s the matter with him?”
Mamie mused, hesitated—seemed to see a wide past. “I don’t know.”
“Something in the background?” Then as her friend was silent, “Something queer about cards?” Mrs. Medwin threw off.
“I don’t know—and I don’t want to!”
“Ah well, I’m sure
Mamie took her eyes quickly from the money on the little stand. “You may say what you like.”
“I only mean that anything awkward you may have to keep out of the way does seem to make more wonderful, doesn’t it, that you should have got just where you are? I allude, you know, to your position.”
“I see.” Miss Cutter somewhat coldly smiled. “To my power.”
“So awfully remarkable in an American.”
“Ah you like us so.”
Mrs. Medwin candidly considered. “But we don’t, dearest.”
Her companion’s smile brightened. “Then why do you come to me?”
“Oh I like YOU!” Mrs. Medwin made out.
“Then that’s it. There are no ‘Americans.’ It’s always ‘you.’”
“Me?” Mrs. Medwin looked lovely, but a little muddled.
“ME!” Mamie Cutter laughed. “But if you like me, you dear thing, you can judge if I like YOU.” She gave her a kiss to dismiss her. “I’ll see you again when I’ve seen her.”
“Lady Wantridge? I hope so, indeed. I’ll turn up late to-morrow, if you don’t catch me first. Has it come to you yet?” the visitor, now at the door, went on.
“No; but it will. There’s time.”
“Oh a little less every day!”
Miss Cutter had approached the table and glanced again at the gold and silver and the note, not indeed absolutely overlooking the two coppers. “The balance,” she put it, “the day after?”
“That very night if you like.”
“Then count on me.”
“Oh if I didn’t—!” But the door closed on the dark idea. Yearningly then, and only when it had done so, Miss Cutter took up the money.
She went out with it ten minutes later, and, the calls on her time being many, remained out so long that at half-past six she hadn’t come back. At that hour, on the other hand, Scott Homer knocked at her door, where her maid, who opened it with a weak pretence of holding it firm, ventured to announce to him, as a lesson well learnt, that he hadn’t been expected till seven. No lesson, none the less, could prevail against his native art. He pleaded fatigue, her, the maid’s, dreadful depressing London, and the need to curl up somewhere. If she’d just leave him quiet half an hour that old sofa upstairs would do for it; of which he took quickly such effectual possession that when five minutes later she peeped, nervous for her broken vow, into the drawing-room, the faithless young woman found him extended at his length and peacefully asleep.
CHAPTER III
The situation before Miss Cutter’s return developed in other directions still, and when that event took place, at a few minutes past seven, these circumstances were, by the foot of the stair, between mistress and maid, the subject of some interrogative gasps and scared admissions. Lady Wantridge had arrived shortly after the interloper, and wishing, as she said, to wait, had gone straight up in spite of being told he was lying down.
“She distinctly understood he was there?”
“Oh yes ma’am; I thought it right to mention.”
