Damsel in Distress

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CHAPTER 4.

"Well, that's that!" said George.

"I'm so much obliged," said the girl.

"It was a pleasure," said George.

He was enabled now to get a closer, more leisurely and much more

satisfactory view of this distressed damsel than had been his good

fortune up to the present. Small details which, when he had first

caught sight of her, distance had hidden from his view, now

presented themselves. Her eyes, he discovered, which he had

supposed brown, were only brown in their general colour-scheme.

They were shot with attractive little flecks of gold, matching

perfectly the little streaks gold which the sun, coming out again

on one of his flying visits and now shining benignantly once more on

the world, revealed in her hair. Her chin was square and

determined, but its resoluteness was contradicted by a dimple and

by the pleasant good-humour of the mouth; and a further softening

of the face was effected by the nose, which seemed to have started

out with the intention of being dignified and aristocratic but had

defeated its purpose by tilting very slightly at the tip. This was

a girl who would take chances, but would take them with a smile and

laugh when she lost.

George was but an amateur physiognomist, but he could read what was

obvious in the faces he encountered; and the more he looked at this

girl, the less he was able to understand the scene which had just

occurred. The thing mystified him completely. For all her

good-humour, there was an air, a manner, a something capable and

defensive, about this girl with which he could not imagine any man

venturing to take liberties. The gold-brown eyes, as they met his

now, were friendly and smiling, but he could imagine them freezing

into a stare baleful enough and haughty enough to quell such a

person as the silk-hatted young man with a single glance. Why,

then, had that super-fatted individual been able to demoralize her

to the extent of flying to the shelter of strange cabs? She was

composed enough now, it was true, but it had been quite plain that

at the moment when she entered the taxi her nerve had momentarily

forsaken her. There were mysteries here, beyond George.

The girl looked steadily at George and George looked steadily at

her for the space of perhaps ten seconds. She seemed to George to

be summing him up, weighing him. That the inspection proved

satisfactory was shown by the fact that at the end of this period

she smiled. Then she laughed, a clear pealing laugh which to George

was far more musical than the most popular song-hit he had ever

written.

"I suppose you are wondering what it's all about?" she said.

This was precisely what George was wondering most consumedly.

"No, no," he said. "Not at all. It's not my business."

"And of course you're much too well bred to be inquisitive about

other people's business?"

"Of course I am. What was it all about?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you."

"But what am I to say to the cabman?"

"I don't know. What do men usually say to cabmen?"

"I mean he will feel very hurt if I don't give him a full

explanation of all this. He stooped from his pedestal to make

enquiries just now. Condescension like that deserves some

recognition."

"Give him a nice big tip."

George was reminded of his reason for being in the cab.

"I ought to have asked before," he said. "Where can I drive you?"

"Oh, I mustn't steal your cab. Where were you going?"

"I was going back to my hotel. I came out without any money, so I

shall have to go there first to get some."

The girl started.

"What's the matter?" asked George.

"I've lost my purse!"

"Good Lord! Had it much in it?"

"Not very much. But enough to buy a ticket home."

"Any use asking where that is?"

"None, I'm afraid."

"I wasn't going to, of course."

"Of course not. That's what I admire so much in you. You aren't

inquisitive."

George reflected.

"There's only one thing to be done. You will have to wait in the

cab at the hotel, while I go and get some money. Then, if you'll

let me, I can lend you what you require."

"It's much too kind of you. Could you manage eleven shillings?"

"Easily. I've just had a legacy."

"Of course, if you think I ought to be economical, I'll go

third-class. That would only be five shillings. Ten-and-six is the

first-class fare. So you see the place I want to get to is two

hours from London."

"Well, that's something to know."

"But not much, is it?"

"I think I had better lend you a sovereign. Then you'll be able to

buy a lunch-basket."

"You think of everything. And you're perfectly right. I shall be

starving. But how do you know you will get the money back?"

"I'll risk it."

"Well, then, I shall have to be inquisitive and ask your name.

Otherwise I shan't know where to send the money."

"Oh, there's no mystery about me. I'm an open book."

"You needn't be horrid about it. I can't help being mysterious."

"I didn't mean that."

"It sounded as if you did. Well, who is my benefactor?"

"My name is George Bevan. I am staying at the Carlton at present."

"I'll remember."

The taxi moved slowly down the Haymarket. The girl laughed.

"Yes?" said George.

"I was only thinking of back there. You know, I haven't thanked you

nearly enough for all you did. You were wonderful."

"I'm very glad I was able to be of any help."

"What did happen? You must remember I couldn't see a thing except

your back, and I could only hear indistinctly."

"Well, it started by a man galloping up and insisting that you had

got into the cab. He was a fellow with the appearance of a

before-using advertisement of an anti-fat medicine and the manners

of a ring-tailed chimpanzee."

The girl nodded.

"Then it was Percy! I knew I wasn't mistaken."

"Percy?"

"That is his name."

"It would be! I could have betted on it."

"What happened then?"

"I reasoned with the man, but didn't seem to soothe him, and

finally he made a grab for the door-handle, so I knocked off his

hat, and while he was retrieving it we moved on and escaped."

The girl gave another silver peal of laughter.

"Oh, what a shame I couldn't see it. But how resourceful of you!

How did you happen to think of it?"

"It just came to me," said George modestly.

A serious look came into the girl's face. The smile died out of her

eyes. She shivered.

"When I think how some men might have behaved in your place!"

"Oh, no. Any man would have done just what I did. Surely, knocking

off Percy's hat was an act of simple courtesy which anyone would

have performed automatically!"

"You might have been some awful bounder. Or, what would have been

almost worse, a slow-witted idiot who would have stopped to ask

questions before doing anything. To think I should have had the

luck to pick you out of all London!"

"I've been looking on it as a piece of luck--but entirely from my

viewpoint."

She put a small hand on his arm, and spoke earnestly.

"Mr. Bevan, you mustn't think that, because I've been laughing a

good deal and have seemed to treat all this as a joke, you haven't

saved me from real trouble. If you hadn't been there and hadn't

acted with such presence of mind, it would have been terrible!"

"But surely, if that fellow was annoying you, you could have called

a policeman?"

"Oh, it wasn't anything like that. It was much, much worse. But I

mustn't go on like this. It isn't fair on you." Her eyes lit up

again with the old shining smile. "I know you have no curiosity

about me, but still there's no knowing whether I might not arouse

some if I went on piling up the mystery. And the silly part is that

really there's no mystery at all. It's just that I can't tell

anyone about it."

"That very fact seems to me to constitute the makings of a pretty

fair mystery."

"Well, what I mean is, I'm not a princess in disguise trying to

escape from anarchists, or anything like those things you read

about in books. I'm just in a perfectly simple piece of trouble.

You would be bored to death if I told you about it."

"Try me."

She shook her head.

"No. Besides, here we are." The cab had stopped at the hotel, and a

commissionaire was already opening the door. "Now, if you haven't

repented of your rash offer and really are going to be so awfully

kind as to let me have that money, would you mind rushing off and

getting it, because I must hurry. I can just catch a good train,

and it's hours to the next."

"Will you wait here? I'll be back in a moment."

"Very well."

The last George saw of her was another of those exhilarating smiles

of hers. It was literally the last he saw of her, for, when he

returned not more than two minutes later, the cab had gone, the

girl had gone, and the world was empty.

To him, gaping at this wholly unforeseen calamity the commissionaire

vouchsafed information.

"The young lady took the cab on, sir."

"Took the cab on?"

"Almost immediately after you had gone, sir, she got in again and

told the man to drive to Waterloo."

George could make nothing of it. He stood there in silent

perplexity, and might have continued to stand indefinitely, had not

his mind been distracted by a dictatorial voice at his elbow.

"You, sir! Dammit!"

A second taxi-cab had pulled up, and from it a stout, scarlet-

faced young man had sprung. One glance told George all. The hunt

was up once more. The bloodhound had picked up the trail. Percy was

in again!

For the first time since he had become aware of her flight, George

was thankful that the girl had disappeared. He perceived that he

had too quickly eliminated Percy from the list of the Things That

Matter. Engrossed with his own affairs, and having regarded their

late skirmish as a decisive battle from which there would be no

rallying, he had overlooked the possibility of this annoying and

unnecessary person following them in another cab--a task which, in

the congested, slow-moving traffic, must have been a perfectly

simple one. Well, here he was, his soul manifestly all stirred up

and his blood-pressure at a far higher figure than his doctor would

have approved of, and the matter would have to be opened all over

again.

"Now then!" said the stout young man.

George regarded him with a critical and unfriendly eye. He disliked

this fatty degeneration excessively. Looking him up and down, he

could find no point about him that gave him the least pleasure,

with the single exception of the state of his hat, in the side of

which he was rejoiced to perceive there was a large and unshapely

dent.

"You thought you had shaken me off! You thought you'd given me the

slip! Well, you're wrong!"

George eyed him coldly.

"I know what's the matter with you," he said. "Someone's been

feeding you meat."

The young man bubbled with fury. His face turned a deeper scarlet.

He gesticulated.

"You blackguard! Where's my sister?"

At this extraordinary remark the world rocked about George dizzily.

The words upset his entire diagnosis of the situation. Until that

moment he had looked upon this man as a Lothario, a pursuer of

damsels. That the other could possibly have any right on his side

had never occurred to him. He felt unmanned by the shock. It seemed

to cut the ground from under his feet.

"Your sister!"

"You heard what I said. Where is she?"

George was still endeavouring to adjust his scattered faculties.

He felt foolish and apologetic. He had imagined himself unassailably

in the right, and it now appeared that he was in the wrong.

For a moment he was about to become conciliatory. Then the

recollection of the girl's panic and her hints at some trouble

which threatened her--presumably through the medium of this man,

brother or no brother--checked him. He did not know what it was all

about, but the one thing that did stand out clearly in the welter

of confused happenings was the girl's need for his assistance.

Whatever might be the rights of the case, he was her accomplice,

and must behave as such.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

The young man shook a large, gloved fist in his face.

"You blackguard!"

A rich, deep, soft, soothing voice slid into the heated scene like

the Holy Grail sliding athwart a sunbeam.

"What's all this?"

A vast policeman had materialized from nowhere. He stood beside

them, a living statue of Vigilant Authority. One thumb rested

easily on his broad belt. The fingers of the other hand caressed

lightly a moustache that had caused more heart-burnings among the

gentler sex than any other two moustaches in the C-division. The

eyes above the moustache were stern and questioning.

"What's all this?"

George liked policemen. He knew the way to treat them. His voice,

when he replied, had precisely the correct note of respectful

deference which the Force likes to hear.

"I really couldn't say, officer," he said, with just that air of

having in a time of trouble found a kind elder brother to help him

out of his difficulties which made the constable his ally on the

spot. "I was standing here, when this man suddenly made his

extraordinary attack on me. I wish you would ask him to go away."

The policeman tapped the stout young man on the shoulder.

"This won't do, you know!" he said austerely. "This sort o' thing

won't do, 'ere, you know!"

"Take your hands off me!" snorted Percy.

A frown appeared on the Olympian brow. Jove reached for his

thunderbolts.

"'Ullo! 'Ullo! 'Ullo!" he said in a shocked voice, as of a god

defied by a mortal. "'Ullo! 'Ullo! 'Ul-lo!"

His fingers fell on Percy's shoulder again, but this time not in a

mere warning tap. They rested where they fell--in an iron clutch.

"It won't do, you know," he said. "This sort o' thing won't do!"

Madness came upon the stout young man. Common prudence and the

lessons of a carefully-taught youth fell from him like a garment.

With an incoherent howl he wriggled round and punched the policeman

smartly in the stomach.

"Ho!" quoth the outraged officer, suddenly becoming human. His

left hand removed itself from the belt, and he got a businesslike

grip on his adversary's collar. "Will you come along with me!"

It was amazing. The thing had happened in such an incredibly brief

space of time. One moment, it seemed to George, he was the centre

of a nasty row in one of the most public spots in London; the next,

the focus had shifted; he had ceased to matter; and the entire

attention of the metropolis was focused on his late assailant, as,

urged by the arm of the Law, he made that journey to Vine Street

Police Station which so many a better man than he had trod.

George watched the pair as they moved up the Haymarket, followed by

a growing and increasingly absorbed crowd; then he turned into the

hotel.

"This," he said to himself; "is the middle of a perfect day! And I

thought London dull!"

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