CHAPTER XXX

Half an hour later Miles Clayton was being sent away by Mrs Green. He was a good deal more disturbed and disappointed than the occasion seemed to warrant. He couldn’t very well force his way into the house and burst into the bedroom of an invalid old lady to insist that Kay should leave with him at once. One of the disadvantages of being brought up in a civilized society is that it gives you tiresome inhibitions about this sort of thing. The natural man in Miles was all for shoving Mrs Green out of the way, finding Kay wherever she might be, and removing her with a strong hand and no damned nonsense about it. Had he followed this impulse, it is just possible that he might have surprised Miss Rowland in those incongruous grey tweed trousers, and everything might have happened a little differently. As it was, the inhibitions were too much for him, and he went away in a state of champing impatience. He hadn’t the slightest intention of waiting till nine o’clock. Nurse Long would be bound to be back by half past four or so to give the old lady her tea. Meanwhile he had better go and see the Gilmores about Flossie. Since it now seemed that she was not Flossie Macintyre, but Rhoda Moore’s niece, the sooner this was made quite clear the better it would be for everyone.

Flossie opened the door, and it was perfectly plain that she had been crying. Her eyelids were swollen and pink, and so was her pretty little nose. As Miles walked in, she sniffed a most woe-begone sniff and said,

“Mrs Gilmore’s out, Mr Miles.”

“Good Lord, Flossie—what’s the matter?”

Flossie shut the door and burst into tears.

“I’m sure I wish I was dead!” she said, and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief already sodden.

Miles took her by the arm and marched her into the dining-room.

“You’d better tell me all about it. Mrs Gilmore won’t mind. What’s been happening?”

Flossie sat down on one of the dining-room chairs and looked up at him through her long, drenched eyelashes.

“I don’t care if I never see Ernie again!” she declared.

Not a very tactful fellow Ernie. A bit class-conscious too. He had probably been renouncing the Macintyre heiress with plain-spoken scorn. From Flossie’s rather incoherent remarks this appeared to be the case, and it had naturally incensed her very much. If there was any breaking off to be done, she was the one to do it. Furthermore it would have been one thing to be nobly renounced in the humble adoring manner so popular on the stage and in romantic fiction, and quite another to be scornfully discarded as belonging to a class detested by the true Marxian. Ernie, it seemed, was Red, and though not averse from a partnership in a garage with the giddy height of proprietorship in view, yet drew the line quite firmly at everything else of a capitalist nature.

“Him to have the neck to talk about blood-suckers, and exploiting wage-slaves, and all the rest of it! And to say he wouldn’t demean himself to marry a girl out of a capitalist family! Which I said to him, ‘Ernie Bowden,’ I said, ‘you may think yourself lucky if you ever get married at all,’ I said. ‘And it won’t be me,’ I said, ‘not if it was ever so,’ I said, ‘and not if you went down on your bended knees and begged and beseeched me till you was black in the face,’ I said. ‘And I’m sure whoever she is, I’m sorry for her, pore thing—I am reelly—for she won’t know what a bargain she’s getting till it’s too late! And I’m sure I’ve reason to be thankful as I’ve found you out in time, for a more miserable girl there won’t never be than the one that’s got to call herself Mrs Ernest Bowden—which it isn’t me and never will be!’ I said.” The words came pouring out, accompanied but not impeded by dabbings, and sniffs, and gulps.

When she stopped for breath, Miles said,

“Poor Ernie! But you wouldn’t have married him if you’d been an heiress, would you, Flossie?”

Flossie was sharp. Flossie was uncommon sharp. The handkerchief dropped from her eyes, and her first angry stare gave place to a look which combined intelligence and relief.

“What do you mean, Mr Miles?”

“Well, you wouldn’t—would you?”

Flossie brushed that away. It wasn’t any of his business anyhow—not whether she married Ernie it wasn’t.

“You said if, Mr Miles. And I’d like to know what you mean by that.”

Miles told her. He took another of Lila Gilmore’s backless glass chairs and sat down upon its scarlet velvet cushion. Then he told Flossie all about his visit to Mrs Gossington, and about half way through she got so interested that she stopped sniffing and put her handkerchief away.

“So I’m afraid you’re not Miss Macintyre after all,” he finished up.

Flossie heaved a sigh.

“Well, I don’t think that I was all that struck on it,” she said. “You see, Mr Miles, it’s this way. I didn’t sleep last night—not what you might call sleep. And when you can’t sleep, you do a bit of thinking, and it come over me pretty strong that a bit more than what you’ve got is what everybody’d like to have. There’s things I’ve planned to do and things I thought I’d save up for, and got a lot of fun out of it. But when it isn’t just a little more, but an awful lot that you hardly know what you’d do with, why it makes all the things you’ve been planning for look kind of silly, don’t you think? And then look how it’s upset Ernie—right down made him forget himself. And what Aunt would have said if she’d heard him, I don’t know.”

Miles felt a good deal of admiration and respect for Miss Flossie Palmer. He said,

“I think Ernie’s a very lucky young man.”

The colour came into Flosie’s cheeks. She tossed her head.

“Oh—Ernie—” she said. “If he thinks he can treat me the way he done and not hear no more about it, he’s got to hurry up and think again!”

Miles laughed.

“Don’t be too fierce with him!”

Flossie stuck her chin in the air, and then spoilt the effect by giggling.

“Fact is, Ernie’s got a temper, and so’ve I, and when he goes all on about capitalists and that Marx that you can’t understand a word of it feeds me up—it does reelly. And when it comes to saying as how he wouldn’t marry a capitalist’s daughter, well, I did think it was the limit and no mistake. And mind you, Mr Miles, he’s right down fond of me Ernie is, so how he’d the nerve, I don’t know. And look what a sight he’s made me make of myself!” She tossed her head again. “Pore Ernie indeed! If he’s half as miserable as what he’s made me, it’s no more than what he deserves—and I only hope he is!”

Miles waited until the Gilmores came in, and informed them that Flossie wasn’t Miss Macintyre after all.

“She’s done nothing but cry her eyes out ever since you told her she was,” said Lila plaintively. “I can’t think why, but she has. You know, Miles darling, if you were to tell me that I was a simply enormous heiress, and that those divine black pearls were really mine, I shouldn’t cry. But Flossie’s done nothing but cry. It’s too unbalanced of her—isn’t it?”

“Ah, but then you see her young man cut up rough, and she thought she’d lost him.”

Lila hung on Freddy’s arm.

“Freddy darling, you wouldn’t leave me if I was an heiress, would you?”

“I don’t know,” said Freddy. “If you began to come it over me, I might.”

“But, darling, I shouldn’t, and I’d simply love to be an heiress. Fitz says he’s got the most marvellous investment if I’ve got any spare cash—and of course I haven’t, but it would be simply bound to make my fortune if I had. And I do think, Freddy might listen about it even if he won’t do anything—don’t you, Miles? It’s either a gold mine or a coal mine, and I can’t remember whether the name of the place is Yukon or Yucatan, but I’m practically certain it begins with a Y. And Fitz says it’s the most wonderful offer that’s ever been made and he’s putting his shirt on it, and Freddy simply won’t listen.”

Freddy looked up from Mrs Gossington’s statement, which he had been reading.

“So you’ve got to start all over again and look for this Mrs Moore.”

“She’s dead,” said Miles.

“Oh, you know that? Well then, you’ve got to find her niece. I suppose if she passed off her niece as the Macintyre child, she’s probably just changed them over and said the Macintyre child was her niece.”

“Freddy darling, I don’t see that at all.”

“Well, as a matter of fact—” said Miles.

“Miles darling, you’re blushing!” said Lila. “He is, Freddy—isn’t he? I didn’t know anyone could—especially not anyone who’s been to America. I believe he’s found her! Have you really, Miles?”

“Yes, I’ve found her,” said Miles. “Her name is Kay Moore, but I think she really is Kay Macintyre. If you don’t mind, I think I had better begin at the beginning and tell you all about it, because there’s more in it than meets the eye, and I want your help.”

The telling took a little time, and Miles found it a great relief. All the time that he was talking Lila sat leaning forward in one of her gold chairs. She remained quite silent, and sometimes she looked at him, and sometimes she looked at Freddy, with a small puzzled frown between her eyes.

When Miles had finished telling them about Kay, Freddy said, “You’d better bring her here—hadn’t he, Lila?” and Lila gave a start and said,

“Oh yes, Miles darling.”

But presently, when Miles had gone away and she still sat on and didn’t speak, Freddy came and put his arm round her and said,

“What’s the matter, darling?”

“I don’t know. When he said that girl’s name, I thought—” She broke off and looked up at him. “Freddy, I didn’t like it.”

“Silly old goose! What didn’t you like?”

“I don’t know, Freddy, say it again.”

“Say what?”

“What you said—‘Silly old goose!’ It makes me feel safe.”

Freddy hugged her heartily.

“Oh, Lila—you mug! You—you silly old goose! What’s it all about? Why have I got to make you feel safe?”

She had one of his hands, and was holding it very hard.

“Because I didn’t.”

“Didn’t feel safe?”

“No. Freddy, it was horrid. Freddy, I don’t think I want that girl to come here.”

“Oh rubbish, darling!”

She held him harder still.

“Freddy, it was when he said her name—I didn’t like it. I thought I was going to remember something, and then I didn’t.”

Freddy said, “Kay Moore?” and she gave a little cry.

“Oh, Freddy—don’t!”

“But, my darling idiot—”

“Yes, I am, aren’t I? Freddy, say I’m an idiot!”

“My darling, you are.”

She snuggled up to him.

“Freddy, you’re a very comfortable person. You do love me, don’t you?”

Freddy said, “Yes.”

Lila put up her face to be kissed.

“Then I don’t mind about Kay Moore,” she said.