What follows? A partridge. Good! I am behind a hedge and over the hedge a field of turnips, in which there is no sign of life. In the far distance a line of men armed with white flags. I hear a whistle. I say to myself: ‘Take them as they come. Shoot well ahead!’ I hear a multitude of wings beating the air. There are partridges on the ground before every butt except mine. I say to myself: ‘Nevertheless I shall be given two partridges to send home to my wife, who, poor creature, in her blind devotion to her husband will say: “Bryce shot these!” and will have them stuffed and mounted in a glass case.’ ”
Joyce Whipple laughed.
“If I know anything about that young woman,” she said, “she will, on the contrary, observe: ‘Such wonderful birds can only be a present from my friend, Monsieur Hanaud.’ ”
Hanaud with a beaming face waved a hand under Mr. Ricardo’s nose.
“That is how the persons as one wants them, talk. They do not make the difficulties about the idioms. No! They do not look the offence if I give a tiny order to their chauffeur. They do not search all I say for the bad taste like a customs officer looking for the silk stockings. Gorblimey, no! They say ‘Hanaud,’ so,” and he wagged his head and kissed the tips of his fingers, fatuous as a second-rate tenor of grand opera.
In a word, Bryce Carter and Hanaud between them saw to it that Joyce should eat her dinner with nothing to distress her beyond the puerility of their facetiousness. But when the crumbs were brushed from the table and their coffee smoked in front of them and darkness had quite fallen upon the roadway outside, she began of her own accord.
“I shall tell you what happened to me,” she said, “for even Bryce, who flies back to London on any excuse of business, has not heard the story in detail—from the date of my arrival at the Château Suvlac. But I understand that a phrase I once used has caused Mr. Ricardo”—and she smiled very pleasantly at him across the table—“a good deal of perplexity. ‘Cinderella must be home by midnight.’ That was the sentence, wasn’t it? It surprised him, because two American girls let loose on Europe must according to all traditions be multimillionaires. But my sister and I have never had millions of money. Three years ago, indeed, we couldn’t have scraped up enough between us to buy a baby Austin. We were both employed in a big library at Washington; and though we had inherited a tiny property at San Diego, in California, it just kept us decently dressed. We were workgirls. There was a head librarian, an assistant, and six girls under them who divided up the alphabet.”
Two points of importance to Joyce Whipple’s narrative were to be borne in mind by her audience. Firstly, the letters of the alphabet for which she was responsible were M to O inclusive. She had to possess, and did possess, a working knowledge of the subjects which fell within those letters. Secondly, Professor Henry Brewer, of the Pharmacological Laboratory at Leeds, came out to Washington whilst she was employed at the library, to serve upon an International Commission for the suppression of the opium traffic. His duties took him frequently to the library, and since opium was his subject, to the particular department in the charge of Joyce Whipple. The pair became friends, and when Brewer returned home he left behind him a warm invitation to the two girls to make every use of him should they ever come to England.
“Soon after Professor Brewer went away,” Joyce continued, “oil was found upon our little estate and a well was sunk. My sister and I became—I don’t say rich as riches are understood today—but very comfortably off. So making up our minds to see something of the world, we gave up our positions and crossed to Europe. But a year ago the well went dry. My sister was on the point of marrying and returning to the United States. I had to make up my mind what I should do. Our original plan had been to spend two years on this side of the Atlantic, and I had still money enough in hand to complete the programme. Of course, if I had been a really good girl,” she said with a bubble of laughter, “I should have gone straight back too and saved what I had left. But I wasn’t going to. I meant to have my fling whilst I was young enough to get every ounce of fun and enjoyment out of it. Afterwards I would go back to M to O. I was going back this summer. The library was taking me on again. That’s what I meant when I said to Mr. Ricardo: ‘Cinderellas must be home before midnight.’ Midnight for me was on the point of striking. But I was more and more troubled about Diana, and I got leave from Washington to put off my return for another month.”
She shivered as she thought upon the terrible days which that month had included, and then her eyes turned to Bryce Carter and she smiled.
“Yes,” said Mr. Ricardo sententiously. “It is very true. The darkest hour comes before the dawn.”
Bryce Carter stared across the table, sure that somehow his ears had misled him. But not a bit of it. Mr. Ricardo sat benevolent, complacent. He had interpreted in one concise allusion both Joyce Whipple’s shiver and her smile. And time and again during the rest of that evening Bryce Carter’s eyes eagerly sought his fellow-countryman’s face in the hope of another and as satisfying an imbecility.
“I reached the Château Suvlac a fortnight before you,” Joyce resumed. “I had invited myself by telegram, and when Jules Amadée led me out on to the terrace in the afternoon I
