“Will you take this to Miss Bennett,” he said, holding it out.
Webster took the missive, because he wanted to read it later at his leisure; but he shook his head.
“Useless, I fear, sir,” he said gravely.
“What do you mean?”
“I am afraid it would effect little or nothing, sir, sending our Miss B. notes. She is not in the proper frame of mind to appreciate them. I saw her face when she handed me the letter you have just read, and I assure you, sir, she is not in a malleable mood.”
“You seem to know a lot about it!”
“I have studied the sex, sir,” said Webster modestly.
“I mean, about my business, confound it! You seem to know all about it!”
“Why, yes, sir, I think I may say that I have grasped the position of affairs. And, if you will permit me to say so, sir, you have my respectful sympathy.”
Dignity is a sensitive plant which flourishes only under the fairest conditions. Sam’s had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie’s note. In other circumstances he might have resented this intrusion of a stranger into his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one of dull but distinct gratitude. The four winds of heaven blew chilly upon his raw and unprotected soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a mantle of sympathy, careless of the source from which he borrowed that mantle. If Webster, the valet, felt disposed, as he seemed to indicate, to comfort him, let the thing go on. At that moment Sam would have accepted condolences from a coal-heaver.
“I was reading a story—one of the Nosegay Novelettes; I do not know if you are familiar with the series, sir?— in which much the same situation occurred. It was entitled ‘Cupid or Mammon!’ The heroine, Lady Blanche Trefusis, forced by her parents to wed a wealthy suitor, despatches a note to her humble lover, informing him it cannot be. I believe it often happens like that, sir.”
“You’re all wrong,” said Sam. “It’s not that at all.”
“Indeed, sir? I supposed it was.”
“Nothing like it! I—I—”
Sam’s dignity, on its death-bed, made a last effort to assert itself.
“I don’t know what it’s got to do with you!”
“Precisely, sir!” said Webster, with dignity. “Just as you say! Good afternoon, sir!”
He swayed gracefully, conveying a suggestion of departure without moving his feet. The action was enough for Sam. Dignity gave an expiring gurgle, and passed away, regretted by all.
“Don’t go!” he cried.
The idea of being alone in this infernal lane, without human support, overpowered him. Moreover, Webster had personality. He exuded it. Already Sam had begun to cling to him in spirit, and rely on his support.
“Don’t go!”
“Certainly not, if you do not wish it, sir.”
Webster coughed gently, to show his appreciation of the delicate nature of the conversation. He was consumed with curiosity, and his threatened departure had been but a pretence. A team of horses could not have moved Webster at that moment.
“Might I ask, then what…?”
“There’s been a misunderstanding,” said Sam. “At least, there was, but now there isn’t, if you see what I mean.”
“I fear I have not quite grasped your meaning, sir.”
“Well, I—I—played a sort of—you might almost call it a sort of trick on Miss Bennett. With the best motives, of course!”
“Of course, sir!”
“And she’s found out. I don’t know how she’s found out, but she has. So there you are!”
“Of what nature would the trick be, sir? A species of ruse, sir,—some kind of innocent deception?”
“Well, it was like this.”
It was a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting emotions, told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman intelligence of Webster, that he succeeded in grasping the salient points. Indeed, he said that it reminded him of something of much the same kind in the Nosegay Novelette, “All for Her,” where the hero, anxious to win the esteem of the lady of his heart, had bribed a tramp to simulate an attack upon her in a lonely road.
“The principle’s the same,” said Webster.
“Well what did he do when she found out?”
“She did not find out, sir. All ended happily, and never had the wedding-bells in the old village church rung out a blither peal than they did at the subsequent union.”
Sam was thoughtful.
“Bribed a tramp to attack her, did he?”
“Yes, sir. She had never thought much of him till that moment, sir. Very cold and haughty she had been, his social status being considerably inferior to her own. But, when she cried for help, and he dashed out from behind a hedge, well, it made all the difference.”
