The City of Masks Part 26

"Better call me Tom,--for the present at least," he suggested, sitting down beside her on the trunk.

"What a strange coincidence," she murmured. There was not much room on the trunk for two. He sat quite on one end of it.

"You mean,--sitting there?" he inquired, blankly.

"No. Your turning up as you did,--out of a clear sky."

"I shouldn't call it clear," said he, suddenly diffident. "Thick as a blanket."

"It was queer, though, wasn't it?"

"Not a bit. I've been walking up and down past this house for twenty minutes at least. We were bound to meet. Sit still. I'll keep an eye out for an empty taxi. The first thing to do is to see that you get safely down to Mrs. Sparflight's."

"How did you know I was to go there?" she demanded.

"She told me," said he bluntly.

"She wasn't to tell any one--at present." She peered closely,--at the side of his face.

He abruptly changed the subject. "And then I'll come back here and wait till he ventures out. I'm off till nine o'clock. I sha'n't pull his nose this time."

"Please explain," she insisted, clutching at his arm as he started to arise. "Did she send you up here, Mr. Trotter?"

"No, she didn't," said he, almost gruffly, and stood up to hail an approaching automobile. "Can't see a thing," he went on. "We'll just have to stop 'em till we catch one that isn't engaged. Taxi?" he shouted.

"No!" roared a voice from the shroud of mist.

"The butler telephoned for one, I am sure," said she. "He must have been sent away before I came downstairs."

"Don't think about it. You'll get yourself all wrought up and--and--Everything's all right, now, Lady Jane,--I should say Miss--"

"Call me Jane," said she softly.

"You--you don't mind?" he cried, and sat down beside her again. The trunk seemed to have increased in size. At any rate there was room to spare at the end.

"Not--not in the least," she murmured.

He was silent for a long time. "Would you mind calling me Eric,--just once?" he said at last, wistfully. His voice was very low. "I--I'm rather homesick for the sound of my own name, uttered by one of my own people."

"Oh, you poor dear boy!"

"Say 'Eric,'" he pleaded.

"Eric," she half-whispered, suddenly shy.

He drew a long, deep breath, and again was silent for a long time. Both of them appeared to have completely forgotten her plight.

"We're both a long, long way from home, Jane," he said.

"Yes, Eric."

"Odd that we should be sitting here like this, on a trunk, on the sidewalk,--in a fog."

"The 'two orphans,'" she said, with feeble attempt at sprightliness.

"People pa.s.sing by within a few yards of us and yet we--we're quite invisible." There was a thrill in his voice.

"Almost as if we were in London, Eric,--lovely black old London."

Footsteps went by in the fog in front of them, automobiles slid by behind them, tooting their unheard horns.

"Oh, Jane, I--I can't help it," he whispered in her ear, and his arm went round her shoulders. "I--I love you so."

She put her hand up to his cheek and held it there.

"I--I know it, Eric," she said, ever so softly.

It may have been five minutes, or ten minutes--even so long as half an hour. There is no way to determine the actual lapse of time, or consciousness, that followed her declaration. The patrolman who came up and stopped in front of them, peering hard at the dense, immobile ma.s.s that had attracted his attention for the simple reason that it wasn't there when he pa.s.sed on his uptown round, couldn't have thrown any light on the question. He had no means of knowing just when it began.

"Well, what's all this?" he demanded suspiciously.

Jane sighed, and disengaged herself. Trotter stood up, confronting the questioner.

"We're waiting for a taxi," he said.

"What's this? A trunk?" inquired the officer, tapping the object with his night-stick.

"It is," said Trotter.

"Out of one of these houses along here?" He described a half-circle with his night-stick.

"Right in front of you."

"That's the Smith-Parvis house. They've got a couple of cars, my bucko.

What you givin' me? Whadda you mean taxi?"

"She happens not to be one of the family. The courtesy of the port is not extended to her, you see."

"Hired girl?"

"In a way. I say, officer, be a good fellow. Keep your eye peeled for a taxi as you go along and send it up for us. She had one ordered, but--well, you can see for yourself. It isn't here."

"That's as plain as the nose on your face. I guess I'll just step up to the door and see if it's all right. Stay where you are. Looks queer to me."

"Oh, it isn't necessary to inquire, officer," broke in Jane nervously.

"You have my word for it that it's all right."

"Oh, I have, have I? Fine! And what if them bags and things is filled with silver and G.o.d knows what? You don't--"