Our Friend the Charlatan

"This is delightful!" cried the girl. "I am so much obliged to you!"

"Tickets, please."

"Shown already," replied May. "Change of carriage."

The door was slammed, locked. The whistle sounded.

"But we're starting!" May exclaimed. "Quick! Jump out, Mr. Lashmar!"

Dyce sat still, smiling calmly.

"It's too late, I'm afraid I mustn't try to escape by the window."

"Oh, and you have sacrificed yourself just to make me more comfortable! How inconvenient it will be for you! What a waste of time!"

"Not at all. The best thing that could have happened."

"Well, we have papers at all events." May handed him one. "Pray don't feel obliged to talk."

"As it happens, I very much wish to talk. Queer thing that I should owe my opportunity to Robb. I shall never again feel altogether hostile to that man. I wish you had seen him. He looked apoplectic. This weather must try him severely."

"You never spoke to him, I suppose?" asked May.

"I never had that honour. Glimpses only of the great man have been vouchsafed to me. Once seen, he is never forgotten. To-day he looks alarmingly apoplectic."

"But really, Mr. Lashmar," said the girl, settling herself in her corner, "I do feel ashamed to have given you this useless journey—and just when you are so busy."

She was pretty in her travelling costume. Could Lashmar have compared her appearance to-day with that she had presented on her first arrival at Rivenoak, he would have marvelled at the change wrought by luxurious circumstance. No eye-glasses now; no little paper-cutter hanging at her girdle. Called upon to resume the Northampton garb, May would have been horrified. The brown shoes which she had purchased expressly for her visit to Lady Ogram would have seemed impossibly large and coarse. Exquisite were her lavender gloves. Such details of attire, formerly regarded with some contempt, had now an importance for her. She had come to regard dress as one of the serious concerns of life.

"I went to Pont Street this afternoon," said Dyce, "with a wish that by some chance I might see you alone. It was Very unlikely, but it has come to pass."

May exhibited a slight surprise, and by an imperceptible movement put a little more dignity into her attitude.

"What did you wish to speak about?" she asked, with an air meant to be strikingly natural.

"Don't let me startle you; it was about my engagement to Miss Bride."

This time, Dyce felt he could not be mistaken. She was confused; he saw colour mounting on her neck; the surprise she tried to convey in smiling was too obviously feigned.

"Isn't that rather an odd subject of conversation?"

"It seems so, but wait till you have heard what I have to say. It is on Miss Bride's account that I speak. You are her friend, and I feel that, in mere justice to her, I ought to tell you a very strange story. It is greatly to her honour. She couldn't tell you the truth herself, and of course you will not be able to let her know that you know it. But it will save you from possible misunderstanding of her, enable you to judge her fairly."

May hardly disguised her curiosity. It absorbed her self-consciousness, and she looked the speaker straight in the face.

"To come to the point at once," pursued Lashmar, "our engagement is not a genuine one. Miss Bride has not really consented to marry me. She only consents to have it thought that she has done so. And very generous, very noble, it is of her."

"What a strange thing!" the girl exclaimed, as ingenuously as she had ever spoken in her life.

"Isn't it! I can explain in a word or two. Lady Ogram wished us to marry; it was a favourite project of hers. She spoke to me about it—putting me in a very difficult position, for I felt sure that Miss Bride had no such regard for me as your aunt supposed. I postponed, delayed as much as possible, and the result was that Lady Ogram began to take my behaviour ill. The worst of it was, her annoyance had a bad effect on her health. I think you know that Lady Ogram cannot bear contradiction."

"I know that she doesn't like it," said May, her chin rising a little.

"You, of course, are favoured. You have exceptional influence. But I can assure you that it would have been a very unpleasant thing to have to tell Lady Ogram either that I couldn't take the step she wished, or that Miss Bride rejected me."

"I can believe that," said May indulgently.

"When I saw that she was making herself ill about it, I took the resolve to speak frankly to Miss Bride. The result was—our pretended engagement."

"Was it your suggestion?" inquired the listener.

"Yes, it came from me," Dyce answered, with half real, half affected, embarrassment. "Of course I felt it to be monstrous impudence, but, as some excuse for me, you must remember that Miss Bride and I have known each other for many years, that we were friends almost in childhood. Perhaps I was rather a coward. Perhaps I ought to have told your aunt the truth, and taken the consequences. But Miss Bride, no less than I, felt afraid of them."

"What consequences?"

"We really feared that, in Lady Ogram's state of health—"

He broke off significantly. May dropped her eyes. The train roared through a station.

"But," said May at length, "I understand that you are to be married in October."

"That is Lady Ogram's wish. Of course it's horribly embarrassing. I needn't say that when our engagement is announced as broken off, I shall manage so that all the fault appears to be on my side. But I am hoping—that Lady Ogram may somehow be brought to change her mind. And I even dare to hope that—you will help us to that end."

"I? How could I, possibly?"

"Indeed, I hardly know. But the situation is so awkward, and you are the only person who has really great influence with Lady Ogram—"

There was silence amid the noise of the train. May looked through one window, Dyce through the other.

"In any case," exclaimed Lashmar, "I have discharged what I felt to be a duty. I could not bear to think that you should be living with Miss Bride, and totally misunderstanding her. I wanted you to do justice to her noble self-sacrifice. Of course I have felt ashamed of myself ever since I allowed her to get into such a false position. You, I fear, think worse of me than you did."

He regarded her from under his eyelids, as if timidly. May sat very upright. She did not look displeased; a light in her eyes might have been understood as expressing satisfaction.

"Suppose," she said, looking away, "that October comes, and you haven't been able to—to put an end to this situation?"

"I'm afraid—very much afraid—that we shall have to do so at any cost."

"It's very strange, altogether. An extraordinary state of things."

"You forgive me for talking to you about it?" asked Dyce, leaning respectfully forward.

"I understand why you did. There was no harm in it."

"Do you remember our talk in the supper-room at Mrs. Toplady's?—when we agreed that nothing was more foolish than false modesty. Shall I venture to tell you, now, that, if this marriage came about, it would be something like ruin to my career? You won't misunderstand. I have a great respect, and a great liking, for Miss Bride; but think how all-important it is, this question of marriage for a public man."

"Of course I understand that," May replied.

He enlarged upon the topic, revealing his hopes.