"How little she knows,how little she knows!"the girl cried to herself;for what did that show after all but that Captain Everard's telegraphic confidant was Captain Everard's charming secret?Our young friend's perusal of her ladyship's telegram was literally prolonged by a momentary daze:what swam between her and the words,making her see them as through rippled shallow sunshot water,was the great,the perpetual flood of "How much I know--how much I know!"This produced a delay in her catching that,on the face,these words didn't give her what she wanted,though she was prompt enough with her remembrance that her grasp was,half the time,just of what was NOT on the face."Miss Dolman,Parade Lodge,Parade Terrace,Dover.Let him instantly know right one,Hotel de France,Ostend.Make it seven nine four nine six one.
Wire me alternative Burfield's."
The girl slowly counted.Then he was at Ostend.This hooked on with so sharp a click that,not to feel she was as quickly letting it all slip from her,she had absolutely to hold it a minute longer and to do something to that end.Thus it was that she did on this occasion what she never did--threw off a "Reply paid?"that sounded officious,but that she partly made up for by deliberately affixing the stamps and by waiting till she had done so to give change.She had,for so much coolness,the strength that she considered she knew all about Miss Dolman.
"Yes--paid."She saw all sorts of things in this reply,even to a small suppressed start of surprise at so correct an assumption;even to an attempt the next minute at a fresh air of detachment.
"How much,with the answer?"The calculation was not abstruse,but our intense observer required a moment more to make it,and this gave her ladyship time for a second thought."Oh just wait!"The white begemmed hand bared to write rose in sudden nervousness to the side of the wonderful face which,with eyes of anxiety for the paper on the counter,she brought closer to the bars of the cage.
"I think I must alter a word!"On this she recovered her telegram and looked over it again;but she had a new,an obvious trouble,and studied it without deciding and with much of the effect of making our young woman watch her.
This personage,meanwhile,at the sight of her expression,had decided on the spot.If she had always been sure they were in danger her ladyship's expression was the best possible sign of it.
There was a word wrong,but she had lost the right one,and much clearly depended on her finding it again.The girl,therefore,sufficiently estimating the affluence of customers and the distraction of Mr.Buckton and the counter-clerk,took the jump and gave it."Isn't it Cooper's?"It was as if she had bodily leaped--cleared the top of the cage and alighted on her interlocutress."Cooper's?"--the stare was heightened by a blush.Yes,she had made Juno blush.
This was all the greater reason for going on."I mean instead of Burfield's."Our young friend fairly pitied her;she had made her in an instant so helpless,and yet not a bit haughty nor outraged.She was only mystified and scared."Oh,you know--?""Yes,I know!"Our young friend smiled,meeting the other's eyes,and,having made Juno blush,proceeded to patronise her."I'LL do it"--she put out a competent hand.Her ladyship only submitted,confused and bewildered,all presence of mind quite gone;and the next moment the telegram was in the cage again and its author out of the shop.Then quickly,boldly,under all the eyes that might have witnessed her tampering,the extraordinary little person at Cocker's made the proper change.People were really too giddy,and if they WERE,in a certain case,to be caught,it shouldn't be the fault of her own grand memory.Hadn't it been settled weeks before?--for Miss Dolman it was always to be "Cooper's."