CHAPTER X

THE OTHER GIRL

Rosamond Fayre, secretary, returned to her employer's house on Friday evening.

It was just as Beeton was preparing to sound the dressing-bell that the tall girl, coated and veiled from the motor, came running lightly up the steps and into the hall to be met by Eleanor, over whose compact little shoulder a masculine figure might be seen lurking none too happily, in the background.

"Ah, Rosamond, you are late," Eleanor greeted her pleasantly. The girls never attempted a kiss; Eleanor, because she would not have considered it business-like to be on those terms with a salaried clerk, however much of a friend she was; Rosamond, because, like many girls of a generous temperament, she was sparing of indiscriminate caresses. (In dreams her kisses might be many ... in real life she waited for--a dream....)

They shook hands, and then Eleanor made a little summoning movement of her dusky head. The young man behind her straightened himself and came forward to that long-evaded, now inevitable introduction.

"A surprise for you, Rosamond," said Eleanor, smiling placidly. "You two have met, I hear, but without either of you knowing who the other was. This is my _fiancé_, Mr. Ted Urquhart."

The young man--rather wooden-faced--bowed to Miss Fayre, who, without displaying too much astonishment, gave the lightest laugh of conventional amusement as she nodded.

"How funny this is," she said brightly, "isn't it? How do you do, Mr. Urquhart? (We entertained your _fiancé_ unawares, Eleanor, that he was wishing us all at the bottom of the sea because we could not produce the rightful mistress of the Hostel to talk to him.) Yes, a perfect crossing, thanks. What, a parcel in my room? How nice! I always like to find something unexpected waiting for me, don't you?"

She stood a little aside to let her employer precede her upstairs, then she went off to her own room, smiling.

That smile deepened as Rosamond opened her white door and stepped across the pretty room to the open latticed casement. The sunset was misty golden beyond the dove-coloured sweep of Kentish Weald with here and there a church-spire holding up a slim blue finger; the lime-trees of the Court Avenue made a dark frame for the picture. It was all utterly, unsuspectingly peaceful; and very English. After all, Rosamond found it was rather pleasant to be back again in England.

That was not why she smiled, though.

"So that's Mr. Ted Urquhart! He little knows that I have known that for nearly a week now! He shall never know how I found out, either," decided Rosamond with a little laugh.

And as she slipped off her travel-dusty costume and splashed in freshening hot water, she laughed once or twice over the pictures in her mind. A picture of the hall at the Hostel and of the walking-stick that a young man had dropped there while he went off post-haste to fetch a tea-basket, and that a young woman had, suspecting nothing, picked up. A tell-tale walking-stick with a big silver knob engraved with initials, and a crest for all the world to see. Not the sort of stick a young man ought to carry who's set his mind upon travelling incognito!

Then the picture of Ted Urquhart's straight back as seen from the Hostel window, marching off with indignation expressed in every line of it! The picture of his face just now!

"So, that is the young man of the Camp, and the runaway bulls, and the revolver fights, is it? That's 'my dear Ted,' in fact, to whom Eleanor--or I--used to send off those extremely interesting letters every mail? What a grotesque plan that was." She laughed as she unwove her plaits and twisted them again into the Clytie knot on the back of her neck.

"And how I used to wonder what he looked like, this unseen young man to whom I signed myself 'His affectionately.' Well, I know now. And he doesn't know I've seen most of his--er--love-letters." She laughed again. "How furious he would be! He is furious enough with me now," thought Rosamond Fayre. "I saw that. Furious because I had to hear his name at last. Furious because a third person knows of that silly, silly trick he played--tried to play off on his _fiancée_! She doesn't seem to be particularly angry," reflected Rosamond. "I shouldn't have spoken to him for weeks, if he'd been anything to do with me. As it was, I was rather annoyed with him for the moment. Not now. Oh, no! Now I'm only interested to watch him--and Eleanor. They've had a week, now, to find out each other's tastes, and so on.... I _suppose_ he likes her? I expect he'll loathe me cordially henceforward."

She hummed lightly a scrap of an old song as she finished doing her hair:

"_My father's a hedger and ditcher--_

"It's getting late in the summer to dress for dinner without turning on the lights----"

Catching together her blue crêpe kimono, she stepped across to the window again. With a little jingle of brass rings she drew the cream-coloured casement curtains, catching, as she did so, the sound of a crunching step on the gravel outside, the whiff of a cigarette.

"Alone. I wonder what he's thinking about. Waiting for Eleanor to come down, of course," said Rosamond Fayre as she stepped back.

Behind those drawn curtains she snapped on the lights. They shone on that waiting parcel, a square white carton box with a dressmaker's name ("Madame Cora") splashed in scarlet letters across it, containing a new evening frock for Miss Fayre, who spent what Eleanor privately considered an utterly disproportionate amount of her salary upon clothes.

"I wonder what Eleanor is going to put on 'for Him'?" mused Rosamond as she sat down on the bed and cut the scarlet strings of the box. "Surely she'll stop having a soul above dressing to please a man now? Lots of girls could take Eleanor's looks and make them rather Spanish and piquante. But will she?"

Layer after layer of tissue paper rustled at her feet with the sound of drifted autumn leaves.

Rosamond took out the frock.

It was of three-tiered pink, fading from the deep blush of the lowest flounce to the creamy heart of the corsage, and but for the shot-weighed hems it would have seemed light as a silken scarf across her arm.

"Now there's something really mysterious about a woman's pretty frock that's not been put on yet," thought Rosamond. Her eyes drank in the dainty colour. "She doesn't yet know what will happen to her while she's wearing it. How can Eleanor call clothes '_so inessential_'? A frock? Why, it's a fateful thing! Now, this----"

She stepped into the pink sheath.

"Will it be an unlucky frock? A hoodoo? Some are!" She drew it up about her pliant column of a body. "Or will it be a 'frock of fascination' that brings a good time whenever or wherever it's worn? Perhaps!" She slipped sculptured arms into those short transparent sleeves. "Oh! Feels like crisp butterfly's wings against one! Yes! Surely Eleanor will learn to enjoy clothes for his sake? Surely he'll teach her that? Though I don't think much of him, even if he does romp up and down the Andes with castings on his back. (Obstinate-looking back.) Now, which is the--ah, here----"

She joined the silken waist-belt, humming her old song:

"_My father's a hedger and ditcher-- My mother must card and spin--_

Fancy when they spun all their own frocks!"

With busy enjoyment she fastened silver snaps down the front, still humming----

"_But I'm a poor little critcher--_

That's it----"

She coaxed a tiny hook into a silken loop,

"_And money comes slowly in!_

Now!"

She turned to the long glass of her wardrobe a glance of triumphant enquiry.

Yes!

It was a success.

Ah, blessed fashions of Nineteen Fourteen, that revived all the frilly, feminine vanity and charm, with none of the rigidity of the Crinoline Period! That corolla of petal shapes spreading below the hips as the girl that lent it movement turned slowly, lifted an arm, took a step aside and back again! Why, this garment was just a flower made into a frock! She smiled with frankest pleasure at her own white-framed reflection. And the last cunning touch was to overlay it with that film of misty-blue chiffon which softened all that warmer colour with just the quality of pink rose-leaves!

"My frock; distinctly mine!" murmured the girl. "I've never looked so nice in anything. I'll write and tell Mrs. Core that. Clever little woman! Worth double what she charges. It is nice! M--m!"

She pursed her mouth into the shape of a kiss wafted to that preening, radiant image of gold-and-white-and-rose.

"Rather a darling! The frock, I mean, of course. Oh, I shall be happy in this, I know. Is it too idiotically silly and frivolous, after all, to think it matters so much? It's not looked upon as frivolous to enjoy a good picture? No! That's artistic interest. Then why isn't it 'artistic' to enjoy actually being the delightful colouring and the graceful 'line,' and all that? It gives such pleasure, and not only to oneself," mused Rosamond. "Now, shall I, or not, wear just a bud fastened into the lace here?"

She had chosen that bud from the bowl of roses set on her corner writing-table; she was pinning it in when a sudden thought checked her.

"Why----"

The smile faded from her face. A little, unreasonable chill seemed to pass over her.

Why, she had forgotten. This brand-new frock was not for wearing at dinner to-night! This was for "special" occasions; parties. She'd only been trying it on to see if it needed to be sent back for any alteration. It wasn't as if _her_ sweetheart had just come home. _She'd_ nobody--nothing to dress for, to make herself into charming pictures for, to-night. Yet here she was prinking, tittivating and taking thought of her appearance, just as if she were, say, in Eleanor's place!

The lace at her breast stirred over a little sigh. "Rather a pity, Rosamond, that you haven't got--somebody nice of your own to admire you just now," she thought. "This frock simply calls for it! ... Well, some day, perhaps, before it's quite worn out----! But I had better make haste and get out of it, now----"

Rather slowly she began to unfasten those snaps,--"since it does fit all right."

She coaxed that tiny hook out of that silken noose.

Then, with a jerk, she stepped out of the frock, and gave a little laugh. Her face cleared into gaiety again.

Briskly she began putting the new vanity away, humming as she did so, the end of her old song:

"_Last night the dogs did bark._

(I hope dinner won't be long. I'm quite hungry.)

_And I went out to see--_

(Better stuff this tissue-paper back into the sleeves.)

_And every lass had a spark, But there's nobody comes for me!_"

She turned back to the wardrobe.

"The old black ninon rag, I suppose----"

That old black ninon rag flattered her neck and shoulders as even the rose-pink lisse had not done.--"And perhaps my one and only remaining piece of modest jewellery----"

This was a tiny antique paste slide and clasp on a velvet ribbon. Another girl might wear black, to show up the contrast with her throat, but Rosamond's neck-band was of velvet insolently white, inviting comparison with the skin against which it could scarcely be seen.

She was fastening the clasp as the purr of the gong through the house rose into a growl and died down again to a mutter.

"Good.... There is dinner. I wonder if Mr. Ted Urquhart thinks that the secretary ought to be having it in the housekeeper's room, with a frock right up to her chin, and a neat little white turn-over collar?" meditated the secretary as she came downstairs. "Of course I shall have to show him, now, that I do know 'my place,' and that I realise I'm merely a menial in this house. No part of my duty to dress for the young master of the house, even if I did have to write love-letters to him! His house. What a pity I don't wear an apron," she concluded with an inward chuckle as she walked demurely into the oak-panelled dining-room of which the long table below the chandelier was unused except for a large party.

The family dined at a small oval table set in one of the windows.

Old Mr. Urquhart, with Charles II. gold buttons on his dress-waistcoat, faced his daughter, who wore an all-white lace dress that made her look as dark as a creole without a Creole's warmth. Eleanor was invariably neat, but always her neatness looked as if it had been achieved without the aid of a mirror. Surely, if she'd glanced at her "effect" in the glass, that little brunette would never have chosen a necklace of silver with sapphires, the special stone of a fair-skinned woman?

Rosamond found herself opposite to Mr. Ted Urquhart--whom Eleanor's girls, no doubt, would have considered better-looking than ever in evening dress.

"Amusing to think what a much larger party we were last time I sat down to table with Eleanor's dear Ted," reflected Miss Fayre. "Yes; there's no reason why I shouldn't get what amusement I can out of the whole thing?"

The amusement, she found, could begin at once.

It began with what was evidently a discussion by Eleanor of some features of the party arranged for next Saturday, and what was as obviously a repetition of old Mr. Urquhart's sentiments thereupon.

"Well, Eleanor, I wash my hands of it. It's Ted's turf, actually."

"But we've agreed not to ruin the turf! We'll have the dancing on the smaller lawn behind the walled garden instead! I've told Marrow he can't object to that," decreed Eleanor. "After all, this whole place doesn't belong to the g-g-gardener! He behaves as if it did! So like a man! No sense of p-p-proportion at all. We should do far better to have one of those Horticultural Hostesses here, with two or three girls from the Gardening College at Glynde under her----"

"Oh, heaven! Yet more girls," mourned old Mr. Urquhart, crumbling his bread.

And Rosamond Fayre, now taking up the attitude that she decided would bring her in the most harmless amusement, looked deprecatingly timid above her soup.

"Well, my dear, you will have the field to yourself this time. You and Miss Fayre"--the old gentleman was, by the way, a great admirer of Miss Fayre's--"will have the field to yourselves. Let me know at what hour you think it will be--ah--safe to return."

"There is to be a special train back to Charing Cross, Father, to take the girls up. They'll be gone by seven, won't they, Rosamond?"

"Oh, yes," murmured Rosamond Fayre.

All the "apron" that she had regretted being unable to tie on over her black dress sounded in her meek voice. Every note of it was calculated to impress upon her neighbour opposite that she, Miss Fayre, was now not the young lady-in-charge of that Holiday Hostel in France. Oh, no! but the humblest of secretaries. The most unassuming of hired menials at Urquhart's Court--Mr. Ted Urquhart's Court. She hoped he saw that. He hadn't looked at her--of course.

"Are you feeling a little tired?" Eleanor asked.

"Oh, no, thanks," uttered the secretary, mildly. "Why?"

"You seem so quiet to-night."

"Perhaps Miss Fayre also," pronounced old Mr. Urquhart, "is trembling at the thought of the invading hordes."

"No, really I'm not," protested Miss Fayre, shyly.

"Anyhow, Father, you needn't tremble! You'll be off before they come," his daughter told him, "and you'll be going with him, Ted, of course."

"Oh, will he be going too?" thought Rosamond. "Yes, I suppose he's sure to. He won't care to be one of a 'horde' surrounding her." Without looking at him, she saw the young engineer glance up as he said quietly--

"Oh, no, Eleanor. You're not going to shut me out of these festivities. I'll stay and see the fun."

"Fun--oh, it wouldn't be any fun for you, Ted," the young mistress of the house said absently. "I'm afraid I shouldn't be able to attend to you at all. You see, it's a regular gathering of the Clans. Not only the two hundred Club girls, but several of the workers that I don't seem to get a chance of talking to at any other time. I really shan't have a minute; that shall I, Rosamond?"

"I am afraid you won't," agreed her secretary politely, the while she thought, "That will choke him off, surely. Knowing that Eleanor won't have time for him. He won't want her Two Hundred. He'll go."

"I think I'll stay, all the same," said the quiet, easy voice of the young man who hadn't looked at Rosamond, "unless Uncle Henry wants somebody with him?"

"Ah," thought Rosamond, "will Mr. Urquhart think he wants him?" She must have been rather counting, she found, on the added amusement of watching Eleanor's dear Ted ousted for an afternoon by Eleanor's beloved girls. For it was with quite a little thrill of gladness that she heard old Mr. Urquhart tell the young man to do just what he liked.

"Then that's all right. I shall stop and lend a hand, Eleanor. Never thought of doing anything else."

"He must like her very much, after all--I mean he must like her," was Rosamond's thought, followed by, "Why, of course he likes her! He'll put up with the whole of the hen-party for her."

"And if I'm talking to these people all the time, Ted," she heard the engaged girl say later on during dinner, "you'll have to get Miss Fayre to show you what to do----"

"If--she'll be so kind," said young Urquhart.

Miss Fayre gave him a polite half-glance. It was not one of the secretary's duties to smile at him, after all. Sitting there eating his dinner as stodgily as if--well, as if he weren't capable of saving a girl's life, for instance. But perhaps he was so fond of the society of girls that he preferred them in hundreds?

"There was one young man of the Classics who insisted on looking on at the Bacchanalian Orgies," old Mr. Urquhart was intoning presently. "Remember his fate, Ted. He was torn to pieces, was he not?"

"I'm not looking on, though," announced the young man, "I'm helping you." And he raised his close-cropped brown head and looked across the centrepiece, a white china basket full of peaches held up by three white china Cupids--looked for the first time directly at Rosamond Fayre.

And this time it was she who did not look.

"Very well; you go to Mr. Ted Urquhart, then, Rosamond," said Eleanor, in her "settling" voice, "when anything's wanted."

Rosamond, intent upon the little silver-handled knife in her hand, said, deferentially, "Yes. Thank you. Only--I don't think Mr. Ted Urquhart quite realises what he has let himself in for!"