Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley. C. N. Williamson
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An old friend of ours is going to take the parcel back with her when she sails to-morrow; smuggle it, maybe, but that's not my business. I thought of a miniature on ivory, but I haven't taken a big fancy to anything I've seen so far. I like your lace better, and it costs just the money my aunt told me to spend. So there you are."
"And there's the lace," I added, laughing. "It's yours. Thank you very much."
"It's for me to thank you," said he. "I'm awfully afraid I'm getting the best of the bargain, though. Wouldn't you rather go somewhere first and consult an expert?"
"No, indeed," said I. "Maybe the expert would tell us the lace was worth only five pounds, not ten. What I'm in a hurry to do is to dash to Selfridge's, and buy the dress I want before some beast of a girl gets it before me. Oh, horror! Maybe she's there already!"
"The worst of it is," said my new friend—I felt he was that—"I haven't got the ten pounds on me. I meant to have anything I might decide to buy sent home and paid for at my hotel."
"Can't I go with you to your hotel, and you give me the money there?" I wanted to know. "You see, I'm in such a hurry about the dress."
He glanced at me with a funny look in his eyes, and somehow I read what it meant. He hadn't called me a "little girl," and had behaved as respectfully as if I were a hundred; but I could see that he thought me about twelve or thirteen; and now he was saying to himself: "No harm carting a child like that about without a chaperon."
This was the first time I'd ever been glad that I had sacrificed myself for Di, and come to London in my old frocks up to the tops of my boots, and my hair hanging in two tails down to my waist. Of course, if any one were caddish or cattish enough to look her up in the book, it could be found out at a glance that Lady Diana O'Malley was twenty-three; but even if a person is a cad or a cat, he (or she) is often too lazy to go through the dull pages of Debrett or Burke; and besides, there is seldom one of the books handy. Therefore, Di had a sporting chance of being taken for eighteen, the sweet conventional age of a débutante on her presentation. Every one did know, however, that Father had married twice, and that there must be a difference of five or six years between Diana and the chocolate child. Accordingly, if I could be induced to look thirteen at most, it would be useful. As for me, I hadn't cared particularly. I knew I shouldn't get any grown-up fun in London, whether my hair were in a tail or a twist, or whether my dresses were short or long. Sometimes I had been sorry for beginning in that way, but now I saw that virtue was going to be rewarded.
"All right," said my friend. "Maybe it will be the best arrangement." And we left Nebuchadnezzar looking as the dog in the fable must have looked, when he snapped at the reflected bit of meat in the water and lost the bit in his mouth.
A taxi was passing, and stopped at the flourish of a cane. I jumped in before I could be helped. The man followed; and though I was looking forward only to a little fun, my very first adventure in London "on my own," the chauffeur was speeding us along a road that didn't stop at the Waldorf Hotel: it was a road which would carry us both on and on, toward a blazing bonfire of wild passion and romance.
CHAPTER II
The first thing we did when we were in the taxicab was to introduce ourselves to each other. I told him that I was Marguerite O'Malley, but that, as I wasn't a bit like a marguerite or even a common or garden daisy, I'd degenerated into Peggy. I didn't drag in anything about my family tree; it seemed unnecessary. He told me that he was Eagleston March, but that he had degenerated into "Eagle." I thought this nickname suited his aquiline nose, his brilliant eyes, and that eager, alert look he had of being alive in every nerve and fibre. He told me, too, that he was a captain in the American army, over in England for the first time on leave; but before he got so far, I knew very well who he was, for I'd read about him days ago in Father's Times.
"Why, you're the first American who's looped the loop at Hendon!" I cried out. "You invented some stability thing or other to put on a monoplane."
He laughed. "Some stability thing or other's a neat description. But you're right. I'm the American fellow that the loop has looped."
"Now I know," said I, "why you're not at the Derby to-day. Horses at their fastest must seem slow to a flying man."
"This time you're not right," he corrected me. "I'm not at the Derby because it isn't much fun seeing a race when you don't know anything about the horses, and haven't a pal to go with."
"But you must have lots of pals," I thought out aloud. "Every one adores the airmen."
"Do they? I haven't noticed it."
"Then you can't be conceited. Perhaps American men aren't. I never knew one before, except in business."
"Good heavens! So you really are a business woman, as well as a linguist, apparently. At what age did you begin?"
"What age do you take me for now?" I hedged.
"About twelve or thirteen, I suppose, though I'm no judge of girls' ages, whether they're little or big."
"I'm over twelve," I confessed, and went on hastily to change the dangerous subject. "But I really did have business with an American. It was in letters. My father made me write them, though they were signed with his name. He hates writing letters. I'm so thankful your name isn't Trowbridge. I hope you aren't related to any Trowbridges?"
"Not one. But why?"
"Oh, because, if you were, you might want to throw me to the wolves—I mean under the motor buses. We've done the Trowbridges of Chicago a fearful wrong. We let them our place in Ireland, while we came to London to enjoy ourselves."
He laughed aloud, that very nice, young laugh of his, which made me feel more at home with him than with people I'd known all my life. "You really are a quaint little woman," he said. "Now I come to think of it, I do know some people in Chicago named Trowbridge."
"Oh, well," said I, "if you must throw me out of anything, do it out of your monoplane. It would be so much more distinguished than out of a mere taxi. And at least, I should have flown first! For you would have to take me up before you could dash me down. And so my dream would have come true."
"Is it your dream to fly?" he asked, interested.
"Waking and sleeping," said I. "Ever since I was a tiny child, my very best dream has been that I was flying. Even to dream it asleep is perfectly wonderful and thrilling, worth being born for, just to feel. What must it be when you're actually awake?"
"You are an enthusiast," said Captain March. "You've got it in your blood. What a pity you're not a boy. You could be a 'flying man' yourself."
"Well, it's something to know one," said I. "Why, I'd give my hand—the left one—or anyhow, a finger of it—for just an hour in the air. A toe would be too cheap."
"I'd take you up like a shot, if your people would let you go," said he.
I gasped with joy. "Oh, would you?" I exclaimed. "Really and truly, I didn't mean to hint! But it would be heaven to go!"
"Not in my Golden Eagle," he laughed, "for I'd guarantee to bring you safe and sound back to earth again, this side of heaven. I can take up one passenger, though I haven't yet, since I came out here. I haven't met anybody, till now, I particularly cared to ask, and who would particularly have cared to go."
"And you would care to take me? How kind of you!"
"Kind to myself. I told you I hadn't any pals in England. You seem to be the stuff they're made of. You'd be a 'mascot,' I'm sure. But your people——"
"People? I haven't any. At least, a governess I once had said you couldn't call two, 'people.' They must be spoken of as 'persons.' I have only persons who belong to me—just Father and a grown-up sister—a half-sister. They like each other so much that they haven't room to care about me. If the Golden