The Missionary. George Chetwynd Griffith

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СКАЧАТЬ I'm very much obliged to you indeed. Good night!"

      He rose as she did, and took the neatly-gloved little hand that she held out to him over the table.

      "I don't see why we should say good night just yet unless you particularly wish it," he said. "I only came here with a lot of our fellows to see the Biograph, and I shan't stop now that's over. I'm getting jolly hungry, too. If you have no other engagement suppose we were to go and have a bit of supper somewhere?"

      For some reason or other which she was quite unable to define, these words, although they were spoken with perfect politeness, and although she had heard them scores of times before without offence, now almost offended her. And yet there was no real reason why they should.

      She had been out to supper with pretty nearly all sorts and conditions of men. Why should she not go with this well-groomed, athletic-looking young fellow who had already done her a considerable service, who was obviously a gentleman, and whose face and expression had now begun to strike her as so curiously like her own?

      She really had no other engagement for the evening, and to refuse would be, to say the least of it, ungracious; so, after a moment's hesitation, she took her hand away and said with a quick upward glance of her eyes:

      "Very well, I was just beginning to think about supper myself when I turned up out there in that absurd way, so we may as well have it together. Where were you thinking of going? Suppose we were to try the grill-room at the Troc. Of course everywhere will be pretty crowded to-night, but we have as good a chance of getting a table there as anywhere else. Besides, I know one or two of the waiters. I often go there to lunch."

      "Very well," he said; "come along." And in a few minutes more they were rolling along in a hansom down Shaftesbury Avenue.

      Vane Maxwell was in very good humour that night with himself and all the world. He had taken a double first in Mods., in History and Classics, after crowning a brilliant career at Eton with a Balliol Scholarship. He was stroke of his college boat, and had worked her four places up the river. In another year he might be in the 'Varsity Eight itself, and help to avenge the defeat which the Dark Blues had just suffered. The sweetheart he had won in that Homeric little battle behind the wheelhouse had been faithful to him ever since. He had an abundance of pocket money and the prospect of a fair fortune, and altogether the world appeared to be a very pleasant place indeed to live in.

      When they got into the cab the girl half expected that he would slip his arm round her as others were wont to do when they had the chance, but he didn't, and she liked him all the better for it. He did, however, put his hand through her arm and draw her just a little closer to him. Then he leant back in the cab, and, as the light from a big gin palace lamp flashed on to her face, he said:

      "Well, this is jolly. I'm so glad you came. I feel just in the humour for a good supper in pleasant society."

      "Thank you," she said, with a little toss of her head; "but how do you know my society is going to be pleasant?"

      "Oh, it couldn't be anything else," he laughed. "You are far too pretty not to be nice."

      "Thanks," she said gravely. "Are all the pretty girls you know nice? Don't you find some of them horribly conceited and dull? Lots of fellows I know say so."

      "Lots of fellows!" he echoed. "Then you have a pretty extensive acquaintance——"

      "Why, of course I have," she interrupted, cutting him short almost roughly. Then she went on with a swift change of tone, "Don't you see that a—a girl like me has got to know plenty of fellows? It's—well, it's business, and that's the brutal truth of it."

      She turned her head away and looked out of the cab window as though she didn't want him to see the expression that came over her face as she said the last few words.

      But though he did not see the change in her face, the change in her voice struck him like a jarring note in a harmony that he was beginning to find very pleasant. He felt a sort of momentary resentment. He knew, of course, that it was the "brutal truth," but just then he disliked being reminded of it—especially by her. She seemed a great deal too nice for that to be true of her. There was a little pause, rather an awkward one, during which he tried to think of the proper thing to say. Of course he didn't succeed, so he just blurted out:

      "Oh, never mind about brutal truths just now, little girl."

      There was another pause, during which she still kept her head turned away. Then he went on with a happy inconsequence:

      "By the way, has it struck you yet that we're rather like each other?"

      "Is that a compliment to me or to yourself?" she said, half gravely, and yet with a belying gleam of mischief in her eyes.

      "Oh, a likeness like that could only be a compliment to me, of course," he replied, and before the conversation could proceed any farther the cab stopped at the entrance to the Trocadero.

      By great good luck they procured one of the little side tables in the inner room just as another couple were leaving it. One of the waiters had recognised her as she came in, and, with the astute alacrity of his kind, had taken possession of them and pre-empted the table before anyone else could get near it. There were, in fact, others waiting who had a prior right, but the gentleman in the plum coat and gold buttons made it impossible for the superintendent of the room to interfere by saying to Maxwell in his blandest tone:

      "Good evening, sir; it's all right, sir. This is the table you engaged."

      "He's a smart youth, that Fritz," said the girl as they sat down. "These fellows here know which side their bread's buttered on, and they look after their own customers."

      "Yes, he seems to know his business," said Maxwell, "and now I suppose the question is, what are we going to have?"

      Fritz had come back, and was swiftly and rapidly removing the débris left behind by their predecessors. The girl looked up at him with an air of familiarity which Maxwell didn't altogether like, and said:

      "What's good for supper, Fritz? I am hungry."

      "A few oysters, miss, grilled sole, and a nice little porterhouse steak between two. How's that, miss?"

      She looked across at Maxwell and nodded, and he said, "Yes, I think that will do very nicely. Let's have the oysters at once, and some brown bread and butter."

      "Yes, sir, certainly. Any wine, sir?"

      The list was presented, opened, of course, at the champagne page.

      "You'll have something fizzy, won't you?" he said, looking up from the list.

      "I suppose we may as well," she said, "only I don't want you to think me too extravagant."

      "Nonsense," he laughed, and then he told the waiter to bring a bottle of Kock Fils '89.

      When the man had gone on his errand Maxwell said somewhat diffidently:

      "By the way, we seem to be getting to know each other pretty well, but we've not exactly been introduced. I mean we don't know each other's names yet."

      "Oh, introductions are not much in fashion in the world that I live in," she said with a little flush. "Of course you don't need telling which half of the world that is."

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