Sinister Street

"I want you to send me word the first moment that Lily's alone for an hour; and when I ring, do answer the bell."

"Now that wasn't my fault yesterday," said Mrs. Gainsborough. "Really I thought we should have the fire-escape in. The way you nagged at that poor bell! It was really chronic. But would she let me so much as speak to you, even with the door only on the jar? Certainly not! And all the time she was snapping round the house like a young crocodile. And yet I'm really fond of that girl. Well, when the Captain died, she was a daughter to me. Oh, she was, she was really a daughter to me. Well, you see, his sister invited me to the funeral, which I thought was very nice, her being an old maid and very strict. Now, I hardly liked to put on a widow's cap and yet I hardly didn't like to. But Sylvia, she said not on any account, and I was very glad I didn't, because there was a lot of persons there very stand-offish, and I should have been at my wits to know whatever I was going to say."

"Look here," said Michael. "When the Captain gave you this house, he loved you. You were young, weren't you? You were young and beautiful?

Well, would you like to think your house was going to be used to separate two people very much in love with each other? You can say I climbed over the wall. You can make any excuse you like to Sylvia. But, Mrs. Gainsborough, do, do let me know when Lily is going to be alone. If she doesn't want to come away with me, it will be my fault, and that will be the end of it. If only you'll help me at the beginning. Will you? Will you promise to help me?"

"I never could resist a man," sighed Mrs. Gainsborough, with resignation. "There's a character! Oh, well, it's my own and no one else's, that's one good job."

Michael had to wait until February was nearly over before he heard from her. It had been very difficult to remain quietly at Cheyne Walk, but he knew that if he were to show any sign of activity, Sylvia would carry Lily off again.

"A person to see you, sir," said the tortoise-mouthed parlormaid.

Michael found Mrs. Gainsborough sitting in the hall. She was wearing a bonnet tied with very bright cerise ribbons.

"They've had a rumpus, the pair of them, this afternoon. And Sylvia's gone off in the sulks. I really was quite aggravated with her. Oh, she's a willful spitfire, that girl, sometimes. She really is."

Michael was coming away without a coat or hat, and Mrs. Gainsborough stopped him.

"Now don't behave like a silly. Dress yourself properly and don't make me

"We'll get a hansom."

"What, ride in a hansom? Never! A four-wheeler if you _like_."

It was difficult to find a four-wheeler, and Michael was nearly mad with impatience.

"Now don't upset yourself. Sylvia won't be back to-night, and there's no need to tug at me as if I was a cork in a bottle. People will think we're a walking poppy-show, if you don't act more quiet. They're all turning round to stare at us."

A four-wheeler appeared presently, and very soon they were walking down Tinderbox Lane. Michael felt rather like a little boy out with his nurse, as he kept turning back to exhort Mrs. Gainsborough to come more quickly. She grew more and more red in the face, and so wheezy that he was afraid something would happen to her, and for a few yards made no attempt to hurry her along. At last they reached Mulberry Cottage.

"Supposing Sylvia has come back!" he said.

"I keep on telling you she's gone away for the night. Now get on indoors with you. You've nearly been my death."

"I say, you don't know how grateful I am to you!" Michael exclaimed, turning round and grasping her fat hands.

Mrs. Gainsborough shouted upstairs to Lily as loudly as her breathlessness would permit:

"I've brought you back that surprise packet I promised."

Then she vanished, and Michael waited for Lily at the foot of the stairs. She came down very soon, looking very straight and slim in her philamot frock of Chinese crepe that so well became her. Soon she was in his arms and glad enough to be petted after Sylvia's rages.

"Lily, how can you bear to let Sylvia manage you like this? It's absolutely intolerable."

"She's been horrid to me to-day," said Lily resentfully.

"Well, why do you put up with it?"

"Oh, I don't know. I hate always squabbling. It's much easier to give way to her, and usually I don't much mind."

"You don't much mind whether we're married!" Michael exclaimed. "How can you let Sylvia persuade you against marriage? Darling girl, if you marry me you shall do just as you like. I simply want you to look beautiful.

You'd be happy married to me--you really would."

"Sylvia says marriage is appallingly dull, and my mother and father didn't get on, and Doris doesn't get on with the man she's married to.

In fact, everybody seems to hate it."

"Do you hate me?" Michael demanded.

"No, I think you're awfully sweet."

"Well, why don't you marry me? You'll have plenty of money and nothing to bother about. I think you'd thoroughly enjoy being married."

For an instant, as he argued with her, Michael wavered in his resolve.

For an instant it seemed, after all, impossible to marry this girl. A chill came over him, but he shook it off, and he saw only her loveliness, the eyes sullen with thoughts of Sylvia, the lips pouting at the remembrance of a tyranny. And again as he watched her beauty, the bitter thought crossed his mind that it would be easier to possess her without marriage. Then he thought of her at seventeen. "_Michael, why do you make me love you so?_" Was that the last protest she ever made against the thralldom of pa.s.sion? If it was, the blame must primarily be his, since he had not heeded her reproach.

"Lily," he cried, catching her to him. "You're coming away with me now."

He kissed her a hundred times.

"Now! Now! Do you hear me?"

She surrendered to his will, and as he held her Michael thought grimly what an absurd paradox it was, that in order to make her consent to marry him, he like the others must play upon the baser side of her yielding nature. There were difficulties of packing and of choosing frocks and hats, but Michael had his way through them all.

"Quite an elopement," Mrs. Gainsborough proclaimed.

"A very virtuous elopement," said Michael, with a laugh.

"Oh, but shan't I catch it when that Hottentot comes back!"

"Well, it's Sylvia's fault," said Lily fretfully. "She shouldn't worry me all the time to know whether I like her better than anyone else in the world."

The man arrived with a truck for the luggage.

"Where are you going?" Mrs. Gainsborough asked. "I declare, you're like two babes in the wood."

"To my sister's in Huntingdons.h.i.+re," said Michael, and he wrote out the address.

"Oh, in the country! Well, Summer'll be on us before we know where we are. I declare, my snowdrops are quite finished."

"Is your sister pretty?" Lily asked, as they were driving to King's Cross.

"She's handsome," said Michael. "You'll like her, I think. And her husband was a great friend of mine. By the way, I must send a wire to say we're coming."

CHAPTER VII

THE GATE OF IVORY