Chapter 2

Mr. Arranstoun was extremely startled and annoyed, too, and before he took in the situation, he had exclaimed, while Binko gave an ominous growl of displeasure:

"Confound it--who is that! These are private rooms!" Then, seeing it was a girl on the floor, he said in another voice: "Quiet, Binko--" and the dog retired to his own basket under a distant table. "Oh, I beg your pardon--but----"

The creature on the floor blinked at Michael with large, round, violet eyes, but did not move, while she answered aggrievedly--with a very faint accent, whether a little French or a little American, or a little of both, he was not sure, only that it had something attractive about it.

"You may well say 'but'! I did not mean to intrude upon your private room--but I had to run away from Mr. Greenbank--he was so horrid--" here she gasped a little for breath--"and I happened to see something like a door ajar in the Gainsborough room, so I fled through it, and it fastened after me with a snap--I could not open it again--and it was pitch dark in that dreadful passage and not a scrap of air--I felt suffocated, and I pushed on anywhere--and something gave way and I fell in here--that's all----"

She rattled this out without a stop, and then stared at Michael with her big, childish eyes, but did not attempt to rise from the floor.

He walked toward her and held out his hand, and with ceremonious and ironical politeness, he began:

"May I not help you--I could offer you a chair----"

She interrupted him while she struggled up, refusing his proffered hand.

"I've knocked myself against your nasty table--why do you have it in that place!"

Michael sat down upon the edge of it, and went on in his ironical tone:

"Had I known I was to have the honor of this visit, I should certainly have had it moved."

"There is no use being sarcastic," the girl said, almost crying now. "It hurts very much, and--and--I want to go home."

Mr. Arranstoun pushed a comfortable monster seat toward her, and said more sympathetically:

"I am very sorry--but where is home?"

The girl sank into the chair, and smoothed out her pink cotton frock; the skimpy skirt (not as narrow as in these days, but still short and spare!) showed a perfect pair of feet and ankles.

"She's American, of course, then," Michael said to himself, observing these, "and quite pretty if that smudge of grime was off her face."

She was looking at him now with her large, innocent eyes, which contained no shadow of _gene_ over the unusual situation, and then she answered quite simply:

"I haven't a home, you know--I'm just staying at the Inn with Uncle Mortimer and Aunt Jemima and--and--Mr. Greenbank--and we are tourists, I suppose, and were looking at the pictures--when--when I had to run away."

Michael felt a little piqued with curiosity; she was a diversion after his perplexing, irritating meditations.

"It would be so interesting to hear why you ran away--the whole story?" he suggested.

The girl turned her head and looked out of the window, showing a dear little baby profile, and masses of light brown hair rolled up anyhow at the back. She did not look older than seventeen at the outside, and was peculiarly childish and slender for that.

"But I should have to tell you from the beginning, and it is so long--and you are a stranger."

Michael drew another chair nearer to her, and sat down, while his manner took on a note of grave, elderly concern, which rather belied the twinkle of mischief in his eyes.

"Never mind that--I am sympathetic, and I am your host--and, by Jove!--won't you have some tea! You look awfully tired and--dusty," and he rang the bell, and then reseated himself. "See, to be quite orthodox, we will make our own introduction--I am Michael Arranstoun--and you are----?"

The girl rose and made him a polite bow. "I am Sabine Delburg," she announced. He bowed also--and then she went into a peal of silvery laughter that seemed to contain all the glad notes of spring and youth. "Oh, this is fun! and I--I should like some tea!" She caught sight of herself in an old mirror, which stood upon a commode. "Goodness, what a guy I look! Why didn't you tell me that my hat was crooked!" She settled it straight, and began searching for a handkerchief up her sleeve and in her belt, but none was to be found.

So Mr. Arranstoun handed her a clean one he chanced to have in his pocket. "I expect you want to wipe the smudge of dirt off your face," he hazarded.

She took it laughing, and showing an even row of beautiful teeth between red, full baby lips.

"You are the owner of this castle," she went on, as she gave firm rubs at the velvet pink cheeks. "That must be nice. You can do what you like, I suppose," and here a sigh of regret escaped and made her voice lower.

"I wish I _could_," Mr. Arranstoun answered feelingly.

"Well, if I were _a man_, I would!"

"What would you do?"

She turned and faced him, while she said, with extreme solemnity:

"I should never marry Mr. Greenbank."

Michael laughed.

"I don't suppose you would if you were a man!" At this moment, a footman answered the bell. "Bring tea, please," his master ordered, inwardly amused at the servant's astonished face, and then when they were alone again, he continued his sympathetic questioning.

"Who is Mr. Greenbank? You had to flee from him--you said he was horrid, I believe?"

Miss Delburg had removed her hat, and was trying to tidy her hair before readjusting it; she had the hat-pin in her mouth, but took it out to answer vehemently:

"So he is, a pig! And I went and got engaged to him this morning! You see," turning to the glass again, quite unembarrassed, "I can't get my money until I am married--and Uncle is so disagreeable, and Aunt Jemima nags all day long, and it was left in Papa's will that I was to live with them--and I don't come of age until I am twenty-one, but I can get the money directly if I marry--I was seventeen in May, and of course no one could stand it till twenty-one! Mr. Greenbank is the only person who has asked me, and Aunt Jemima says no one else ever will! I have been out of the Convent for a whole month, and I can't bear it."

Michael was beginning really to enjoy himself. She was something so fresh, so entirely different to anything he had ever seen in his life before. There was nothing of shyness or awkwardness in her manner, as any English girl would have shown. She was absolutely at ease, with a childish, confiding innocence which he saw plainly was real, and not put on for his benefit. It was almost incredible in these up-to-date days. A most engaging morsel of seventeen summers, he decided, as he answered with over-grave concern:

"What a hard fate!--but you have not told me yet why you ran away!"

The girl had finished her toilet by now, and reseated herself with a grown-up air in the big armchair.

"Oh! well, he was just--horrid--that was all," and then abruptly turning the conversation, "It is a nice place you have here, and it does feel lovely doing something wrong like this--having tea with you, I mean. You know, I have never spoken to a young man before. The Nuns always told us they were dreadful creatures--but you don't look so bad--" and she examined her host critically.

Michael accepted the implied appreciation.

"What is Mr. Greenbank, then?"

The silver laugh rang out again, while she jumped up and peeped from the window into the courtyard.

"Samuel--he's only a thing! Oh! Uncle and Aunt would be so angry if they could see me here! And I expect they are all in a fine fuss now to know what has happened to me! They never saw me go through the door, and I hope they think that I've committed suicide out of one of the windows. Look!" and she danced excitedly, "there is Uncle talking to the commissionaire. Oh, what fun!"

Mr. Arranstoun peeped, too--and saw a spare, elderly American of grim appearance in anxious confab with Alexander Armstrong.

The whole situation struck him as delightful, and he laughed gaily, while he suggested: "You are perhaps rather a difficult charge?"

Miss Delburg resented this at once.

"What an idea! How would you like to marry Mr. Greenbank, or stay with Aunt Jemima for four years!"

"Well, you see, I can't contemplate it, as I am not a girl!"

Again those white teeth showed, and the violet eyes were suffused with laughter.

"No! Of course not. How silly I am--but I mean, how would you care to be forced to do something you did not like?"

Michael thought of his own fate.

"By Jove! I should hate it!"

"Well--you can understand me!"

Then the door opened, and the butler and footman brought in the tea, eyeing their master's guest furtively, while they maintained that superbly aloof manner of well-bred English servants. The pause their entrance caused gave Mr. Arranstoun time to think, and an idea gradually began to unfold itself in his brain--and unconsciously he took out, and then replaced in his breast pocket, a mauve, closely-written letter, while a frown of deep cogitation crept over his face.

Miss Delburg, for her part, was only thrilled with the sight of the very agreeable tea, and after waiting a moment to see what her preoccupied host would do when the servants left the room, hunger forced her to fall to the temptation of a particularly appetizing chocolate cake, which she surreptitiously seized, and began munching with the frank joy of a child.

"I do love them!" she sighed, "and we never were allowed them, only once a month after Moravia Cloudwater got that awful toothache, and had to have a big grinder pulled out."

Michael was paying no attention to her; he had walked rapidly up and down the room once or twice, much to her astonishment.

At last he spoke.

"I have an idea--but first let me give you some tea--No--do help yourself," then he paused awkwardly, and she at once proceeded to fill her cup.

Binko had condescended to emerge from his basket under the table. Tea-time was an hour when he allowed himself to take an interest in human beings.

"Oh! you darling!" the girl cried, putting down her cup. "You fat, lovely, wrinkly darling!"

"He is a nice dog," his master admitted; his voice was actually nervous--and he pulled Binko to him by his solid, fleshy paws, while he sat down in his chair again.

Miss Delburg had got back into her seat, where she munched a cake and continued her tea. The chair was so deep and long that her little bits of feet did not nearly reach the ground, but dangled there.

"Mayn't I pour you out some, too?" she asked, getting forward again. "I do love to pour out--and do you take sugar--? I like lumps and lumps of it."

"Oh--er--yes," Michael agreed absently, and then he went on with the determined air of a person getting something off his chest. "I hardly know how to say what I am thinking of, it sounds so strange. Listen--I also must marry someone--anyone--to avert a fate I don't want--What do you say to marrying _me_?"

The teapot came down into the tray with a bump, while the round, childish eyes grew like saucers with astonishment.

"Oh!"

"I dare say it does surprise you--" Michael then hastened to add. "I mean, we should only go through the ceremony, of course, and you could get your money and I my freedom."

The girl clasped her hands round her knees.

"And I should never have to see you again?" in a glad voice of comprehension.

Michael leaned forward nearer to her.

"Well--no--never, unless you wished."

Miss Delburg actually kicked her feet with delight.

"It is a perfectly splendid suggestion," she announced. "We could just oblige one another in this way, and need never see or speak to each other again. What made it come into your head? Do you really think we could do that--Oh! how rude of me--I've forgotten to pour out your tea!"

"Never mind, talking about--our marriage--is more interesting," and Mr. Arranstoun's blue eyes filled with mischievous appreciation of the situation, even beyond the seriousness of the discussion he meant to carry to an end. But this aspect did not so much concern Miss Delburg, as that she had let slip a particular pleasure for the moment, that of being allowed a teapot in her own hand, instead of being given a huge bowl of milk with a drop of weak coffee mixed in it, and watching a like fate fall upon her companions.

When this delightful business was accomplished to her satisfaction, her sweet little round face a model of serious responsibility the while, she handed Michael the cup and drew herself back once more into the depth of the giant chair.

"I can't behave nicely in this great creature," she said, patting the fat cushioned arms, "and the Mother Superior would be horribly shocked, but don't let's mind. Now, do tell me something about this plan. You see," gravely, "I really don't know the world very well yet--I have always been at the Convent near Tours until a month ago--even in the holidays, since I was seven--and the Sisters never told me anything about outside, except that it was a place of pitfalls and that men were dreadful creatures. I was very happy there, except I wanted to get out all the time, and when I did and found Uncle and Aunt more tiresome than the Sisters--there seemed no help for it--only Mr. Greenbank. So I accepted him this morning. But--" and this awful thought caused her whole countenance to change. "Now I come to think of it, the usual getting married means you would have to stay with the man--wouldn't you? And he wants--he wants to kiss--I mean," hurriedly, "you would be lovely to marry because I would never have to see you again!"

Michael Arranstoun put his head back and laughed; she was perfectly delicious--he began to dislike Mr. Greenbank.

His tea was quite forgotten.

"Er--of course not," he agreed. "Well, I could get a special license, if you could tell me exactly how you stand, and your whole name and your parents' names, and everything, and we could get their consent--but I conclude your father, at least, is no longer alive."

Miss Delburg had a very grown-up air now.

"No, my parents are both dead," she told him. "Papa three years ago, and Mamma for ages, and I never saw them much anyhow. They were always travelling about, and Mamma was a Frenchwoman and a Catholic. Her family did not speak to her because she married a Protestant and an American. And the worry it was for me being brought up in a convent! because Papa would have me a Protestant, so I do believe I have got a little religion of my own that is not like either!"

"Yes?"

She continued her narrative in the intervals of the joy of munching another cake.

"Papa was very rich, and it's all mine--Only it appears he did not approve of the freedom of American women--and so tied it up so that I can't get it until I am an old maid of twenty-one--or get married. Is it not disgusting?"

Michael's thoughts were now concentrating upon the vital points.

"But have you not got a guardian or something?"

"Not exactly. Only an old lawyer person who is now in London. I have seen Papa's will, and I know I can marry when and whom I like if I get his consent--and he would give it in a minute, he is sick of me!"

"How fortunate!" Then restlessness seized him again, and he got up, gulped down his tea, and began his pacing.

"I do think it would be a good plan, and we must do it if we can get this person's leave--Yes, and do it quickly before we change our minds, or something interferes. Everyone would think we were perfectly mad, but as it suits us both, that is no one's business--Only--you are rather young--and er--I don't know Greenbank. You are sure he is horrid?"

The girl clasped her hands together with force.

"Sure! I should think so--He wears glasses, and has nasty, scrabbly bits of fur on his face, which he thinks is a beard, and he is pompous and he talks like this," and she imitated a precise Boston voice. "'My dear Sabine--have you considered,' and he is lanky--and Oh! I detest him, and I can't imagine why I ever said I would marry him--but if I don't, what _am_ I to do with Aunt Jemima for four years! I should die of it."

Michael sat on the edge of the table and looked at her long and deeply. He took in the childish picture she made in the big chair. He had no definite appreciation then of her charm, his mind was too fixed upon what seemed a prospect of certain escape from Violet Hatfield and her cunning thirty years of experience. This young thing could not interfere with him, and divorces in Scotland were not impossible things--they would both gain what they wanted for the time, and it was a fair bargain. So he said, after a moment:

"I will go up to London to-morrow, and if it is as you say that you are free to marry whom and when you will, I will try to get this old lawyer's consent and a special license--But how about your Uncle? Has he not any legal right over you?"

Miss Delburg laughed contentedly.

"Not in the least--only that I have to live with him until I am married. Mr. Parsons--that's the lawyer's name--hates him, and he hates Mr. Parsons. So I know Mr. Parsons will be delighted to spite him by giving his consent, if you just say Uncle Mortimer is trying to force me into a marriage against my will with his nephew--Samuel Greenbank is his nephew, you know--no relation to me. It is Aunt Jemima who is Papa's sister."

All this seemed quite convincing. Michael felt relieved.