“I wish, Amelia, you wouldn’t have so much to say to that young man.”
“Laws, mother.”
“So I do. If you go on like that, you’ll put me out of both my lodgers.”
“Go on like what, mother? If a gentleman speaks to me, I suppose I’m to answer him? I know how to behave myself, I believe.” And then she gave her head a toss. Whereupon her mother was silent; for her mother was afraid of her.
V
About L. D.
Apollo Crosbie left London for Allington on the 31st of August, intending to stay there four weeks, with the declared intention of recruiting his strength by an absence of two months from official cares, and with no fixed purpose as to his destiny for the last of those two months. Offers of hospitality had been made to him by the dozen. Lady Hartletop’s doors, in Shropshire, were open to him, if he chose to enter them. He had been invited by the Countess De Courcy to join her suite at Courcy Castle. His special friend Montgomerie Dobbs had a place in Scotland, and then there was a yachting party by which he was much wanted. But Mr. Crosbie had as yet knocked himself down to none of these biddings, having before him when he left London no other fixed engagement than that which took him to Allington. On the first of October we shall also find ourselves at Allington in company with Johnny Eames; and Apollo Crosbie will still be there—by no means to the comfort of our friend from the Income-tax Office.
Johnny Eames cannot be called unlucky in that matter of his annual holiday, seeing that he was allowed to leave London in October, a month during which few chose to own that they remain in town. For myself, I always regard May as the best month for holiday-making; but then no Londoner cares to be absent in May. Young Eames, though he lived in Burton Crescent and had as yet no connection with the West End, had already learned his lesson in this respect. “Those fellows in the big room want me to take May,” he had said to his friend Cradell. “They must think I’m uncommon green.”
“It’s too bad,” said Cradell. “A man shouldn’t be asked to take his leave in May. I never did, and what’s more, I never will. I’d go to the Board first.”
Eames had escaped this evil without going to the Board, and had succeeded in obtaining for himself for his own holiday that month of October, which, of all months, is perhaps the most highly esteemed for holiday purposes. “I shall go down by the mail-train tomorrow night,” he said to Amelia Roper, on the evening before his departure. At that moment he was sitting alone with Amelia in Mrs. Roper’s back drawing-room. In the front room Cradell was talking to Mrs. Lupex; but as Miss Spruce was with them, it may be presumed that Mr. Lupex need have had no cause for jealousy.
“Yes,” said Amelia; “I know how great is your haste to get down to that fascinating spot. I could not expect that you would lose one single hour in hurrying away from Burton Crescent.”
Amelia Roper was a tall, well-grown young woman, with dark hair and dark eyes;—not handsome, for her nose was thick, and the lower part of her face was heavy, but yet not without some feminine attractions. Her eyes were bright; but then, also, they were mischievous. She could talk fluently enough; but then, also, she could scold. She could assume sometimes the plumage of a dove; but then again she could occasionally ruffle her feathers like an angry kite. I am quite prepared to acknowledge that John Eames should have kept himself clear of Amelia Roper; but then young men so frequently do those things which they should not do!
“After twelve months up here in London one is glad to get away to one’s own friends,” said Johnny.
“Your own friends, Mr. Eames! What sort of friends? Do you suppose I don’t know?”
“Well, no. I don’t think you do know.”
“L. D.!” said Amelia, showing that Lily had been spoken of among people who should never have been allowed to hear her name. But perhaps, after all, no more than those two initials were known in Burton Crescent. From the tone which was now used in naming them, it was sufficiently manifest that Amelia considered herself to be wronged by their very existence.
“L. S. D.,” said Johnny, attempting the line of a witty, gay young spendthrift. “That’s my love—pounds, shillings, and pence; and a very coy mistress she is.”
“Nonsense, sir. Don’t talk to me in that way. As if I didn’t know where your heart was. What right had you to speak to me if you had an L. D. down in the country?”
It should be here declared on behalf of poor John Eames that he had not ever spoken to Amelia—he had not spoken to her in any such phrase as her words seemed to imply. But then he had written to her a fatal note of which we will speak further before long, and that perhaps was quite as bad—or worse.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Johnny. But the laugh was assumed, and not assumed with ease.
“Yes, sir; it’s a laughing matter to you, I dare say. It is very easy for a man to laugh under such circumstances;—that is to say, if he is perfectly heartless—if he’s got a stone inside his bosom instead of flesh and blood. Some men are made of stone, I know, and are troubled with no feelings.”
“What is it you want me to say? You pretend to know all
