“Are you serious?” he at last found his voice to ask.
“Quite,” she nodded gravely. “I think they are worth from twelve to twenty thousand. I am not sure. They are mine,” she went on a little defiantly, and unnecessarily so, thought Tab, “and I may do as I wish with them. I want them to be sold and the money distributed.”
“But my dear Miss Ardfern—” he began.
“My dear Mr. Holland!” she mocked him, “you must do as I tell you if you are going to help me at all.”
“I’ll certainly carry out your wishes,” he said, “but it is a weighty lot of money to give away.”
“It is a weighter lot of money to keep,” she said quietly. “There is another favour I ask—you must not write that I am the donor. You can describe me as a society woman, a retired trades-woman, or as anything you like, except as an actress, and of course my name must not even be hinted. Will you do this?”
He nodded.
“I have them here,” she said. “I kept them at the hotel and had them sent down to me by special messenger yesterday. And now that that business is over, come inside and lunch.”
It was very dear to have her leaning on his arm; her dependence thrilled him. He wanted to take her up in his arms and carry her through that sweet-smelling place, slowly and with dignity, as nurses carry sleeping babies. He wondered what she would think and say, if she guessed his thoughts. It made him hot to consider the possibility for a second.
She did not go direct to the house, but took him through a sunken patch hidden by low bushes, and he stopped and admired, for here a master hand had laid out a Chinese garden with tiny bridges and dwarf trees and great clumps of waxen rock flowers that harboured a faint and delicate scent, a hint of which came up to him.
“You were thinking of carrying me,” she said, apropros of nothing.
Tab went a fiery red.
“But for the proprieties, I should like it. Do you like babies, Mr. Tab?”
“I love ’em,” said he, glad to reach a less embarrassing topic.
“So do I—I have seen so many when I was a child. They are wonderful. It seems to me that they are so near to the source of life they bring with them the very fragrance of God.”
He was silent, impressed, a little bewildered. Where had she seen “so many” babies? Had she been a nurse? She had not been talking for effect. … He knew an actress once, the only other one he had interviewed, who had quoted Ovid and Herrick and had talked with astonishing ease and fluency on the Byzantine Empire. He learnt from a friend that she possessed an extraordinary memory and had read up these subjects before he came, in order to get a good story about herself. She had the story.
No, Ursula was different. He wished he had lifted her up in his arms when she had spoken about being carried.
Over the meal the talk took a personal turn.
“Have you many friends?” she asked.
“Only one,” smiled Tab, “and he’s now so rich that I can scarcely call him a friend. Not that Rex wouldn’t repudiate that.”
“Rex?”
“Rex Lander,” said Tab, “who by-the-way, is very anxious to be introduced to you. He is one of your most fervent admirers.” Tab felt that he was being very noble indeed, and he experienced quite a virtuous glow at his own unselfishness.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“He is old Trasmere’s nephew.”
“Why, of course,” she said quickly, and went red. “You have spoken about him before.”
Tab tried to remember. He was almost certain that he had never mentioned Rex to the girl.
“So he is very rich? Of course, he would be. He was Mr. Trasmere’s only nephew.”
“You saw that in the newspaper?”
“No, I guessed, or somebody told me; I haven’t read any account of the murder, or any of the proceedings. I was too ill. He must be very rich,” she went on. “Is he anything like his uncle?”
Tab smiled.
“I can’t imagine two people more dissimilar,” he said. “Rex is—well, he’s rather stoutish,” he said loyally, “and a lazy old horse. Mr. Trasmere, on the contrary, was very thin, and, for his age, remarkably energetic. When did I mention Rex?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I can’t recall the time and place. Please don’t make me think, Mr. Holland. Where is Rex now?”
“He has gone to Italy. He sailed yesterday,” said Tab, and thereupon the girl’s interest in Rex Lander seemed to suffer eclipse.
“I should like to have had Trasmere’s real story,” said Tab, “he must have lived an interesting life. It is rather curious that we found nothing in the house reminiscent of his Chinese experience but a small lacquer box, which was empty. The Chinese fascinate me.”
“Do they?” she looked at him quickly, “they fascinate me in a way by their kindness.”
“You know them; have you lived in China?”
She shook her head.
“I know one or two,” she said, and paused as though she were considering whether it was advisable to say any more. “When I first came to town from service—”
He gaped at her.
“I don’t quite get that—by ‘service’ what do you mean? You don’t mean domestic service—you weren’t a cook or anything?” he asked jocularly, and to his amazement she nodded.
“I was a sort of tweeny maid: peeled potatoes and washed dishes,” she said calmly, “I was only thirteen at the time. But that is another story, as Mr. Kipling says. At this age, and before I went to school, I met a Chinaman whose son was very ill. He lodged in the house where I was staying. The landlady wasn’t a very humane sort of person, and being Chinese, she thought the poor little boy had some mysterious Eastern disease which she would ‘catch.’ I nursed him, in a way,” she said apologetically, but Tab knew that the apology was not for her condescension, but
