CHAPTER XIII
Stephen rose softly and watched him from behind the window curtains until Gideon had vanished amongst the trees; then Stephen went out and smiled down upon his mother with the air of a man who had just succeeded in accomplishing some great work for the good of mankind at large.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, mother,” he said. “I have been making some arrangements with the worthy man, her father.”
Mrs. Davenant looked up with the nervous, deprecatory expression which always came upon her face when she was in the presence of her son.
“It does not matter, Stephen; I am glad to rest. Where has the man gone? He – he – doesn’t he look rather superior for his station, and why does he look so stern and forbidding?”
“A life spent in solitude, away from the world, has made him reserved and cold,” replied Stephen, glibly, “and, of course, he feels the parting from his daughter.”
“Poor man – poor girl!” murmured Mrs. Davenant.
Stephen looked down at her with a contemplative smile, while his ears were strained for the returning footsteps of Gideon Rolfe.
“Yours is a sweetly sympathetic nature, my dear. I can already foresee that the ‘poor girl’ will not long need anyone’s sympathy. You are already prepared to open your arms and take her to your heart. Is it not so?”
Mrs. Davenant looked up – just as if she wanted to see what he expected of her to say, and seeing that he meant her to say “yes,” said it.
“Yes, I shall be very glad to have a young girl – a good young girl – as a companion, Stephen. My life has been very lonely since you have been away.”
“And I may be away so much. But, mother, you will not forget what I said during our drive? There are special reasons why the girl’s antecedents should not be spoken of. The friend who interested me in her wishes her to forget, if possible, everything concerning her early life.”
“I understand, Stephen.”
“And, by the way, do not allow any expression of astonishment to escape you if, when you see her, you feel astonished at her appearance or manner. Remember that she has spent all her life here, buried in the forest, her sole companions a woodsman and his wife.”
“Her mother and father?” said Mrs. Davenant.
“I said her mother and father, did I not? Just so – her mother and father. Well, we must not expect too much. And after all, it will be far more interesting for you to have a fresh and unsophisticated nature about you, although she may be rather rough and rustic – ”
“I shall be quite content if she is a good girl.”
“Just so. Virtue is a precious gem though incased in a rough casket.”
Gideon Rolfe had returned, but not alone. Emerging from the deep shadow of the trees was what looked to their astonished and unprepared eyes a vision of some wood nymph.
Gideon Rolfe strode forward, his face set hard and sternly cold, and as he reached the cottage he took Una’s hand in his, and looking steadily into Stephen’s eyes, said:
“Mr. Davenant, I have informed my daughter of your mother’s offer to take her under her charge, but I have asked her to postpone her answer until she saw you.”
Stephen bowed, and laid his white hand on his mother’s arm.
“Miss Rolfe,” he said, in a low voice in which paternal kindness and social respect were delicately blended, “this lady is my mother. Like most mothers whose children have flown from the nest, she lives alone and feels her solitude. She is desirous of finding some young lady who will consent to share it with her. It is not only a home she offers you, but – I think I may add, mother – a heart.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Davenant, and as she held out her hand her voice trembled and a tear shone in her eye.
Una, who had been looking from one to the other, with the breath coming in little pants through her half parted lips, drew near and put her hand in the outstretched one, but the next moment turned and clung to Gideon’s arm with a sudden sob.
“Oh, father, I cannot leave you!” she murmured.
Gideon bent his head, perhaps to hide his face, which was working with emotion.
“Hush! it is for the best. Remember what I have said. You wanted to see the world – ”
“Yes – with you,” said Una, audibly.
“The world and I have parted forever, Una.”
“But shall I never see you again?”
“Yes, yes, we shall meet now and again.”
“I trust, Miss Rolfe, that we shall wean your father from his long seclusion. You must be the magnet to draw him from his retreat into the busy haunts of men.”
“You will come and see me?” she murmured.
“Yes, Una. Go where you will,” and he glanced over her head at Stephen, “you may feel that I am watching over you, as I have always watched and guarded you. If any harm comes to you – ”
“Harm?” she breathed, and looked up into his face with questioning gaze.
“Come, Mr. Rolfe, you mustn’t alarm your daughter,” said Stephen, softly. “She will think that the world is filled with lions and wolves seeking whom they may devour. I think you may feel safe from any harm under my mother’s protection, Miss Rolfe.”
“Yes. I have never had a daughter. If you come you shall be one to me.”
“You think me ungrateful?” said Una to her, in her simple, frank way.
“No, my dear,” replied Mrs. Davenant. “I think you only show a naturally affectionate heart. You have never been from home before.”
“Never,” said Una. “Never out of the woods.”
“My poor child. No, I do not think you ungrateful. I like to see that you feel leaving home so much. For you will come, will you not? I shall be disappointed and grieved if you do not, now that I have seen you.”
“Now that you have seen me,” said Una.
“Yes, my dear. For I am sure that I shall love you, and I hope that you will grow fond of me.”
“Do you?” said Una, musingly. “Yes,” she said, after a pause, “I shall love you.”
“Will you kiss me, my dear,” she said; and Una bent and kissed her.
“And now that you think – that you are sure you will like me – you will come,” said Mrs. Davenant.
Una looked before her thoughtfully, almost dreamily, for a moment, then replied:
“Yes, my father wishes me to go. Why does he wish me to go into the world he hates and fears so much? It was only the other day that he warned me against wishing for it, and told me that I should never be happy if I left Warden. Why has he changed so suddenly?”
“I – I think it must have been Stephen who persuaded him. I heard them talking together.”
“Stephen – that is your son,” said Una.
“Yes, he is my son; he is very good and clever – so very clever! He has been a most affectionate son to me, and has never caused me a day’s uneasiness.”
“All sons are not so?” she asked.
“No, indeed,” responded Mrs. Davenant.
“Is he ill?” asked Una, after a pause.
“Ill!”
“Because he is so pale,” she said.
“Yes, Stephen is pale. It is because he thinks and reads so much, and then he is in great trouble now; his uncle died three days ago.”
“Is that why he is dressed in black – and you, too? I am very sorry.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, “that was very nice of you to say that. I can see you have a kind heart. Yes, his uncle is just dead, Mr. Ralph Davenant – Squire Davenant. Why did you start?” – for Una had started and turned to her with a sudden flash of intense interest in her eyes – “did you know him? Ah, no, you could not, if you have not been out of the forest – how strange it seems! – but you have heard of him, perhaps?”
“Yes, I have heard of him.”
At that moment the door opened, and Stephen and Gideon Rolfe came out.
The usual smile sat upon Stephen’s face, in strange contrast to the stern, set look on his companion’s.
Raising his hat to Mrs. Davenant as he approached, Gideon put his hand on Una’s shoulder.
“Go indoors, Una, to your mother,” he said quietly.
Una rose, and after a momentary glance at each of their faces, went inside. Stephen opened and held the door for her, then closed it and came back to the others.
“Mother,” he said, “Mr. Rolfe and I have made our arrangements, and he agrees with me that it would be wiser, now that the news is broken to Miss Rolfe, for her to accompany you back to town this afternoon.”
Mrs. Davenant nodded, and glanced timidly at Gideon’s stern face.
“We have won Mrs. Rolfe over to our side, and she is already making the few preparations necessary for Miss Rolfe’s journey.”
Gideon Rolfe inclined his head as if to corroborate this, then he said:
“Will you come inside, madam, and partake of some refreshment?”
“I would rather wait here. Mr. Rolfe, I hope you feel that, in trusting your daughter to my charge, that she will at least have a happy home, if I can make one for her?”
“That I believe, madam.”
“Yes, I have quite convinced Mr. Rolfe that the change will be beneficial to Miss Rolfe, and that she will be taken every care of. I suppose you are quite old friends already, eh, mother?”
“I think she is a beautiful girl whom one could not help loving,” murmured Mrs. Davenant.
Half an hour passed, and then Una and Martha came out. Una was pale to the lips, the other was red-eyed with weeping, and her tears broke out afresh when Mrs. Davenant shook hands with her and assured her that her daughter should be happy.
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Martha. “It’s what I said would come to pass. Gideon couldn’t expect to keep her shut up here, like a bird in a cage, forever and a day. It was against reason, but it is so sudden,” and her sobs broke into her speech and stopped her.
Mrs. Davenant’s eyes were wet, and she glanced at Stephen, half inclined to postpone the journey; but Gideon Rolfe had called the carriage to the door, and the box was already on the seat.
With the same set calm which he had maintained throughout, Gideon took Una in his arms, held her for a moment and whispering, “Remember, wherever you are I am watching over you!” put her in the carriage in which Stephen had already placed his mother.
He, too, had a word to whisper. It was also a reminder.
“Remember, mother, not another word of the past. Her life begins from today.”
Then he looked at his watch, and said aloud:
“You will just have time to catch the train. Good-bye.”
With the most dutiful affection, he kissed his mother, then went round, and, bare-headed, offered his hand to Una.
“Good-bye, Miss Rolfe,” he said. “You are now starting on a new life. No one, not even your father, can more devoutly wish you the truest and fullest happiness than I do.”
Una, half-blinded with her tears, put her hand in his; but almost instantly drew it away, with something like a shudder. It was cold as ice.
The next moment the carriage started, and the two men were left alone.
For fully a minute they stood looking at it, till it had been swallowed up by the shadows of the trees; then Gideon turned, his face white and working.
“Stephen Davenant,” he said, in slow, measured tones, “one word with you before we part. You have gained your end – be what it may; I say for your sake, let it be for good; for if it be for evil, you have one to deal with who will not hold his hand to punish and avenge. Rather than let her know the heritage of shame which hangs over her, I have let her go. If you value your safety, guard her, for at your hands I require her happiness and well being.”
Stephen’s face paled, but the smile struggled to its accustomed place.
“My dear Mr. Rolfe,” he began, but Gideon stopped him with a gesture.
“Enough. I set no value on your word. There is no need for further speech between us. From this hour our roads lie apart. Take yours, and leave me mine.”
“This is very sad. Well, well; as you say, I have gained my end, but, as I would rather put it, I have done my duty, and I must bear your ungrounded suspicions patiently. Good-bye, my dear sir – good-bye.”
“I have sworn never to touch the hand of a Davenant in friendship,” he said, grimly. “There lies your path” – and he pointed to the Wermesley road – “mine is here, for the present.”
And with a curt nod, he turned toward the cottage.
With a gentle sigh and shake of the head, Stephen, after lingering for a moment, as if he hoped that Gideon’s heart might be softened, turned and entered the wood.
Once in the shadow and out of sight, the smile disappeared, and left his face careworn, restless and anxious.
“Fate favors me,” he muttered. “That boor knows – guesses – nothing of the truth. I never thought to get the girl out of his clutches so easily! Now she is under my watch and ken – I hold her in my hand. But – but” – he mused, his lips twitching, his eyes moving restlessly to and fro – “what shall I do with her? Beautiful – she is lovely! How long will she escape notice in London? Someone will see her – some hot-headed fool – and fall in love. She might marry. Ah!”
And he stooped amongst the brakes and ferns, and looked up, with a sudden, dull-red flush on his pale cheek, a bright glitter in his light eyes, while a thought ran like lightning through his cunning brain.
“Marry her! Why – why should not I?”
An answer came quickly enough in the remembrance of the pale dark face of Laura Treherne, the girl to whom he was pledged.
But with a gesture of impatience he swept the obtrusive remembrance aside.
“Why not?” he muttered. “Then, at one stroke, I should secure myself. By Heaven – I will! I will!”
So elated was he by the thought that he stopped and leaned against a tree and took off his hat, allowing the cool breezes to play upon his white forehead.
“Beautiful, and the real heiress of Hurst Leigh,” he muttered. “Why should I not? By one stroke I should make myself secure, and set that cursed will at defiance, let it be where it may! I will! I will!” he repeated, setting his teeth; then, as he put on his hat, he smiled pitifully and murmured:
“Poor Laura, poor Laura!”
CHAPTER XIV
Una saw her last of Warden Forest through a mist of tears; while a tree remained in sight her face was turned toward it, and in silence she bade farewell to the leafy world in which her life had passed with so much uneventfulness – in silence listened to the soughing of the breeze that seemed to voice her a sad good-bye.
Her companion sat in silence, too, holding the soft, warm hand which clung to hers with an eloquent supplication for protection and sympathy.
But youth and tears are foes who cannot abide long together, and by the time the little railway village of Wermesley was reached, Una’s eyes were full of interest and curiosity.
As the fly rumbled over the unkept streets toward the station, past the few tame shops and the dead-and-alive hotel, her color came and went in rapid fluctuations.
“Is – is this the world?” she asked, in a low voice.
Mrs. Davenant looked at her with a smile, the first which Una had seen on the thin, pale face. She had yet to learn that Mrs. Davenant never smiled in her son’s presence.
“The world, my dear?” she replied. “Well, yes; but a very quiet part of it.”
“And yet there are so many people in the streets, and – ah!” she drew back with an exclamation as the train shrieked into the station.
Mrs. Davenant started – she was nervous herself, and had not yet realized that she had for companion one who was as ignorant of our modern high-pressure civilization as a North American Indian.
“That is the train; don’t be frightened, my dear,” she said.
“Forgive me. I know it is the train – I have read about it. I am not frightened,” she added, quietly, and with a touch of gentle dignity that puzzled Mrs. Davenant.
“My dear,” she said, “I am not finding fault, or chiding you, it is only natural that you should be surprised, but you will find a great deal more to be surprised at when we get to London.”
Una inclined her head as she mentally registered a resolution to conceal, at any cost, any surprise or alarm she might feel on the rest of the journey.
Nevertheless, she kept very close to Mrs. Davenant as they passed to the train, and shrank back into the corner of the carriage driven there by the stupid stare of one or two of the passengers.
“Now we are all right,” said Mrs. Davenant, gently. “We shall not sleep now till we get to town.”
“To London – we are going to London?” asked Una in a low voice.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Davenant. “That is where I live; I live in a great square at the West-end.”
“I know the points of the compass,” said Una, with a smile; “my father taught me,” and she sighed – “poor father!”
“I think your father must be a very clever man, my dear. He appears to have taught you a great deal – I mean” – she hesitated – “you speak so correctly.”
“Do I?” said Una. “Yes, my father is very clever. He knows everything.”
“It is very curious,” she said. “I mean – I hope you won’t be offended – but men in his position are not generally so well informed.”
“Are they not?” said Una, quietly. “I don’t know. Perhaps my father learned all he knows from books.”
“And taught you in the same way. Tell me what books you have read.”
Una smiled softly, and as she did so, Mrs. Davenant started, and looked around at her with something like fright in her grave, still eyes.
“What is the matter?” asked Una.
“No – nothing,” replied the other. “I – you reminded me of somebody when you laughed, I can’t tell whom. But the books, you were going to tell me about the books.”
“I can’t remember all,” said Una, and then she mentioned the titles of some of the well-bound volumes which stood on the little bookshelf in the hut.
Mrs. Davenant regarded her curiously.
“Those are all books of a world that existed long ago,” she said. “You have never read any novels – any novels of present day life?”
“No, I think not.”
“Then you are absolutely ignorant of life as it is,” said Mrs. Davenant.
“Yes, I suppose so,” assented Una.
“I can understand now how useful fiction really is,” murmured Mrs. Davenant. “It is by it alone that a future age will understand what ours is. You are entering upon some strange experiences, Miss Rolfe.”
Una started; the name was so unfamiliar to her that she hardly recognized it.
“Please don’t call me that,” she said, laying her hand on Mrs. Davenant’s arm. “My name is Eunice – Una. Call me Una.”
“I will,” said Mrs. Davenant.
“You have promised to love me, you know.”
“A promise easy to keep, my dear,” she said, and her eyes grew moist. “I little thought when my son Stephen telegraphed to meet him that he was taking me to a daughter.”
“Your son Stephen – he sent for you!” said Una, with frank curiosity. “How did he know of my existence?”
“Through some friend,” said Mrs. Davenant, with much hesitation and nervous embarrassment. “My son is a very good man, and always interesting himself in some good cause or other – something that will benefit his fellow creatures. You – you will like my son when you know more of him,” she added, and though she spoke with pride there was a touch of something like fear in her voice, which always came when she mentioned his name or spoke of his goodness.
“Yes,” said Una, simply, “I will for your sake.”
“Thank you, my dear,” murmured Mrs. Davenant.
“But how,” went on Una, after thinking a moment, “how did his friend know anything about me? Did my father – ”
“I don’t know, Una,” said Mrs. Davenant, nervously. “Stephen doesn’t always tell me everything; you see he has so much to think of, and just now he is in great trouble, you know.”
“Ah! yes,” said Una, gently; “and he had not time to tell you. But he will. I am sorry he is in such trouble.” Then, after a pause, she said: “Are you rich?”
Mrs. Davenant started. The question, so unusual and so strange, bewildered her by its suddenness and its frankness.
“Rich, my dear?” she said. “Yes – I suppose I am rich.”
“And he is rich?”
“He will be, perhaps; we do not know until his uncle’s will is read.”
“I know what a will is,” said Una, with a smile. “It is the paper which a man leaves when he dies, saying to whom he wishes his money to go. And Stephen – ”
“You should say Mr. Stephen, or Mr. Davenant, my dear,” she said. “I don’t mind your calling him Stephen, but – but – ” She looked round in despair. How was she to explain to this frank, beautiful girl the laws of etiquette? “But everyone who speaks of those to whom they are not related say Mr., or Mrs., or Miss.”
“I see,” said Una. “Then Mr. Davenant expects to get his uncle’s money, and then he will be rich. I am very glad. And he does not live in the same house with you?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Davenant – and surely there was something like a tone of relief in her voice – “no; when he is in London he lives in chambers in rooms by himself; but he has been staying at Hurst Leigh.”
“At Hurst Leigh!” echoed Una, softly, and a faint color stole over her face. How wonderful it was! That other – he whose face was always with her, was going there!
“At Hurst Leigh,” repeated Mrs. Davenant. “Do you know it?”
Una shook her head silently. She longed to ask more, to ask if Mrs. Davenant knew the youth who had taken shelter in the cottage, but she simply could not. Love is a wondrous schoolmaster – he had already taught her frank, out-spoken nature the art of concealment.
“It is a grand place,” continued Mrs. Davenant. “A great, huge place,” and she shivered faintly, “and – and if Squire Davenant has left it to Stephen, he will live there.”
“You don’t like it?” said Una, with acute intuition.
“No,” replied Mrs. Davenant, with unusual earnestness. “No, oh no! it frightens me. I was never there but once, and then I was glad – very, very glad to get away, grand and beautiful as it was!”
“But why?” asked Una, eagerly.
“Because – have you never heard of Ralph Davenant?”
Una hesitated a moment. She had heard of him.
“He was a wonderful man, but terrible to me. His eyes looked through one, and then he had been so wicked.”
She stopped short, and Una sighed. So there was another person who was wicked.
“Why are men so wicked?” she asked, in a low voice.
“I – I – don’t know. What a singular question,” said Mrs. Davenant. “No one knows. Perhaps it is because they have different natures to ours. But you need not look so grieved, my dear,” she added, with a little smile, “you need not know any wicked men.”
“Who can tell? One does not know; wicked men are just like the others, only we like them better.”
Mrs. Davenant stared at her, and utterly overwhelmed by the strange reply, sank into her corner and into silence.
The panting engine tore along the line, and presently the clear atmosphere was left behind, and the cloud of smoke which hangs over the Great City came down upon them and took them in, and infolded them.
To Una’s amazement the train seemed to glide over the tops of houses, houses so thick that there seemed but two, or three inches between them. With suppressed excitement – she had resolved to express no surprise or fear – she watched through the window. Sometimes she caught sight of streets thronged with people, and with commingled alarm and curiosity, wondered what had happened to draw them all together so.
She would not ask Mrs. Davenant, for wearied by her double journey, she was leaning back with closed eyes.
Suddenly the train stopped – stopped amidst the noise and confusion of a large terminus – Mrs. Davenant woke, a porter came to the door, received instructions as to the luggage and handed them out.
Notwithstanding her resolution, Una felt herself turning pale.
From Warden Forest to a London railway station.
“Keep close to me, dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, who seemed only nervous and helpless in her son’s presence. “Come, there is a cab.”
In silence Una followed. Men – and women, too, – turned to look at the tall, graceful figure in its plain white dress, and stared at the lovely face, with its half-frightened, half-curious, downcast eyes, and Una felt the eyes fixed on her.
“Why – why do they look at me so?” she asked, when they had entered the cab.
Mrs. Davenant regarded her with a smile, and evaded the frank, open eyes. Was it possible that the girl was ignorant of her marvelous beauty?
“People in London always stare, my dear Una,” she replied, “and they see that you are strange.”
“It is my dress,” said Una, who had been looking out of the window at some of the fashionably-attired ladies. “It is different to theirs. See – look at that lady! Why does she wear so long a dress? she has to hold it up with one hand.”
“It is your dress, no doubt, my dear,” she said. “We must alter it when we get home.”
The cab rolled into the street, and Una was rendered speechless.
But for her resolve she would have shrunk back into the farthest corner of the cab. The number of people, the noise, alarmed her, and yet she felt fascinated.
Were all the people mad that they hurried on so with such grave and pre-occupied faces. She had never seen her father hurry unless he had cut down a tree that had been struck by lightning, and which might injure others in its fall unless cut down with greatest care.
Presently they passed into one of the leading thoroughfares, already lit up, its shops gleaming brightly with the gas-light, its ceaseless line of cabs, and omnibuses, and carriages.
At last, when her eyes were weary with looking, she murmured: “This – this – is the world then at last.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. “This is the world, Una!”
“And are those palaces!” asked Una, as they passed through the West End streets and squares.
“No,” said Mrs. Davenant; “they are only houses, in which rich people dwell, as you would call it.”
“And the trees! Are there no trees?” asked Una, with, for the first time, a sigh.
“Not here, dear. There are some in the parks; some even in the middle of the city itself. You will miss your trees, Una.”
“Yes, I shall miss my trees. But this – this world seems so large; I thought that – ”
“Well,” said Mrs. Davenant, amused with her bewilderment.
“I thought that people in the world knew each other; but that is impossible.”
And she sighed, as she thought that, after all, now that she was in the world, she was no nearer that one being who, for her, was the principal person in it.
“Very few people know each other, Una. It’s a big world, this London. I wonder whether you will be happy?”
Una turned to her with a look upon her face that would have melted a sterner heart than Mrs. Davenant’s.
“I shall be happy, if you will love me,” she said.
Something in the frank, simple reply made Mrs. Davenant tremble. What had she undertaken in the charge of this simple, pure-natured girl, whose beauty caused people to turn and stare at her, and whose innocence was that of a child?
Through miles and miles of streets, as it seemed to Una, the cab made its slow, rumbling way; houses, that were palaces in her eyes, flitted past; and at last they stopped before a palace, as it seemed to Una, in a quiet square.
The door of the house opened, and a servant came out and opened the cab door.
In silent wonderment Una entered the hall, lit with its gas-lamps and lined with flowers, and followed Mrs. Davenant into what was really the drawing-room of a house in Walmington Square; but which seemed to Una to be the principal apartment in some enchanted castle.
But true to her resolve, she stood calm and silent, feeling, rather than seeing, that the eyes of the servant were fixed upon her with curious interest.
“Come upstairs, Una, dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, and Una followed her into another fairy chamber. Flowers, of which Mrs. Davenant, like most nervous persons, was inordinately fond, seemed everywhere: they lined the staircase and the landing, and bloomed in every available corner.
Mrs. Davenant entered her own room, then opened a door into an adjoining one.
“This is your room, my dear,” she said. “If – if – you like it – ”
“Like it!” said Una, with open eyes and beating heart. “Is – is this really mine?” and she looked round the dainty room with incredulous admiration.
“If – if you like it, my dear,” said Mrs. Davenant.
“How could I do otherwise? It is too beautiful for me – ”
“I don’t think anything could be too beautiful for you, Una,” said Mrs. Davenant, with a significance that was entirely lost on Una. “If there is anything you want – I can’t give you any trees, you know.”
“I shan’t want trees while the flowers are here. It is nothing but flowers.”
“I am very fond of them,” said Mrs. Davenant, meekly. “You will hear a bell ring in half an hour; come to me then, I shall wait in the next room for you. I will not lock the door,” and she left her.
Una felt dazed and stunned for a few minutes, then she made what preparations were possible. She chose from her box, which had been conveyed to her room by some invisible agency apparently, a plain muslin dress, and, more by instinct than any prompting of vanity, fastened a rose in her hair.
She had scarcely completed her simple toilet when the bell rang, and she went into the next room.
A maid servant – Una noticed that it was not the one who had opened the door – was in attendance upon Mrs. Davenant, and dropped a courtesy as Mrs. Davenant said, in her nervous, hesitating fashion:
“This is Miss Rolfe, Jane.”
Una smiled, and was about to hold out her hand, but stopped, seeing no movement of a similar kind on the part of the neatly-dressed girl.
“Jane is my own maid, Una,” said Mrs. Davenant. “She will attend to you when you want her.”
Jane dropped another courtesy, but Una detected a glance of curiosity and scrutiny at the plain white muslin.
“Come,” said Mrs. Davenant, “let us go down. Dinner is ready,” and she led the way down-stairs.
Another fairy apartment broke upon Una’s astonished vision as they entered the dining-room.
Small as the houses are in Walmington Square, Una, accustomed only to the small room in the hut, thought that this dining-room was large enough to be the banquet hall of princes.
But, whatever surprise Una felt, she, mindful of her resolve, concealed.
Not even the maid in waiting could find anything to condemn. When she went down-stairs her verdict was favorable.
“Whoever she is,” she said, “she’s a lady. But where on earth she comes from, goodness only knows. A plain muslin dress that might have come out of the ark.”
Dinner was over at last. A “last” that seemed to Una an eternity. Mrs. Davenant rose and beckoned her to follow, and they went into the drawing-room.
“Are you very tired, Una?”
“No,” said Una, thinking of her long wanderings in Warden Forest, “not tired at all, but very surprised.”