And in answer, I made an inarticulate sound.
“But you were so grave about it,” the girl went on, happily, “that I almost thought you were telling the truth, Peter. Then my maid told me—I mean, she happened to mention casually that Mr. Townsend’s valet had described his master to her as an extraordinarily handsome man. So, then, of course, I knew you were Peter Blagden.”
“I perceive,” said I, reflectively, “that Byam has been somewhat too zealous. I begin to suspect, also, that kitchen-gossip is a mischancy petard, and rather more than apt to hoist the engineer who employs it. So, you thought I was Peter Blagden—the rich Peter Blagden? Ah, yes!”
Now the birds were caroling on a wager. “Ah, sweet! what is sweeter?” they sang. “Ah, sweet, sweet, sweet, to meet in the spring.”
But the girl gave a wordless cry at sight of the change in my face. “Oh, how dear of you to care so much! I didn’t mean that you were ugly, Peter. I just meant you are so big and—and so like the baby that they probably have on the talcum-powder boxes in Brobdingnag—”
“Because I happen to be really Robert Townsend—the notorious Robert Etheridge Townsend,” I continued, with a smile. “I am sorry you were deceived by the cigarette-case. I remember now; I borrowed it from Peter. What I meant to confess was that I have known all along you were Margaret Hugonin.”
“But I’m not,” the girl said, in bewilderment. “Why—Why I told you I was Avis Beechinor.”
“This handkerchief?” I queried, and took it from my pocket. I had been absurd enough to carry it next to my heart.
“Oh—!” And now the tension broke, and her voice leapt to high, shrill, half-hysterical speaking.
“I am Avis Beechinor. I am a poor relation, a penniless cousin, a dependent, a hanger-on, do you understand? And you—Ah, how—how funny! Why, Margaret always gives me her cast-off finery, the scraps, the remnants, the clothes she is tired of, the misfit things—so that she won’t be ashamed of me, so that I may be fairly presentable. She gave me eight of those handkerchiefs. I meant to pick the monograms out with a needle, you understand, because I haven’t any money to buy such handkerchiefs for myself. I remember now—she gave them to me on that day—that first day, and I missed one of them a little later on. Ah, how—how funny!” she cried, again; “ah, how very, very funny! No, Mr. Townsend, I am not an heiress—I’m a pauper, a poor relation. No, you have failed again, just as you did with Mrs. Barry-Smith and with Miss Jemmett, Mr. Townsend. I—I wish you better luck the next time.”
I must have raised one hand as though in warding off a physical blow. “Don’t!” I said.
And all the woman in her leapt to defend me. “Ah no, ah no!” she pleaded, and her hands fell caressingly upon my shoulder; and she raised a penitent, tear-stained face toward mine; “ah no, forgive me! I didn’t mean that altogether. It is different with a man. Of course, you must marry sensibly—of course you must, Mr. Townsend. It is I who am to blame—why, of course it’s only I who am to blame. I have encouraged you, I know—”
“You haven’t! you haven’t” I barked.
“But, yes—for I came back that second day because I thought you were the rich Mr. Blagden. I was so tired of being poor, so tired of being dependent, that it simply seemed to me I could not stand it for a moment longer. Ah, I tell you, I was tired, tired, tired! I was tired and sick and worn out with it all!”
I did not interrupt her. I was nobly moved; but even then at the back of my mind some being that was not I was taking notes as to this girl, so young and desirable, and now so like a plaintive child who has been punished and does not understand exactly why.
“Mr. Townsend, you don’t know what it means to a girl to be poor!—you can’t ever know, because you are only a man. My mother—ah, you don’t know the life I have led! You don’t know how I have been hawked about, and set up for inspection by the men who could afford to pay my price, and made to show off my little accomplishments for them, and put through my paces before them like any horse in the market! For we are poor, Mr. Townsend—we are bleakly, hopelessly poor. We are only hangers-on, you see. And ever since I can remember, she has been telling me I must make a rich marriage—must make a rich marriage—”
And the girl’s voice trailed off into silence, and her eyes closed for a moment, and she swayed a little on her feet, so that I caught her by both arms.
But, presently, she opened her eyes, with a wearied sigh, and presently the two fortune-hunters stared each other in the face.
“Ah, sweet! what is sweeter?” sang the birds. “Can you see, can you see, can you see? It is sweet, sweet, sweet!” They were extremely gay over it, were the birds.
After a little, though, I opened my lips, and moistened them two or three times before I spoke. “Yes,” said I, “I think I understand. We have both been hangers-on. But that seems, somehow, a long while ago. Yes, it was a knave who scaled that wall the first time—one who needed and had earned a kicking from here to Aldebaran. But I think that I loved you
