Free Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth Page A

sure.”
    “Then let’s talk about swimming the channel, or flying to Tierra del Fuego, or something nice and safe like that.”
    Margaret laughed again; and when she laughed, the dark fire sparkled in her eyes.
    “My charwoman—I have her once a week when I feel rich enough—doesn’t think flying at all nice—not for a lady ‘as calls herself a lady.’ She said to me this morning that days and nights alone with a ‘pirate’ was what she didn’t call respectable. She’s a priceless treasure, and if I could afford to have her every day, it would cheer me up quite a lot.”
    “Do you need cheering? And if you do, must it be a charwoman?”
    Another dance had begun. They glided into it. Margaret did not perhaps think that Charles’s last remark called for an answer. The young man in the band broke forth once more: “Can’t we be sweethearts now?”
    “This song and dance business is very amusing,” said Charles. “Not a dull moment anywhere. What’s that step the fellow over there’s doing? It looks tricky. Do you know it? You do? Then we’ll practise it together.”
    He saw her home, and it was on the dark doorstep that he said,
    “The clock’s turned back again, and I want to ask you a question?”
    “It’s too late—I must go in.”
    “Yes, it’s too late; but I want to ask you all the same. You wouldn’t give me the chance four years ago, you know. Why did you do it, Margaret?”
    He heard her take her breath; felt, rather than saw, that she stepped back.
    “I can’t tell you.”
    “Why can’t you?”
    “I can’t. It’s all over and done with, and dead and buried.” Her rather deep voice sank deeper. “It’s all over.”
    “I wonder,” said Charles.
    Margaret pushed her latch-key into the lock with a fierce thrust.
    “It’s over,” she said.
    The door shut between them heavily.
    CHAPTER XIII
    Margot Standing wrote again to her friend Stephanie at the pension.
    Oh, Stephanie, I do wish you were here! I haven’t got anyone to talk to, and it’s so frightfully dull.You can’t call Mr. Hale a person to talk to, because he does all the talking himself, and everything he says is simply deadly. He says I shan’t have any money at all unless there’s a will, or those certificates turn up. And he says he’s sure there isn’t a will because of what poor Papa said to his father. And yesterday he said he was sure there weren’t any certificates, because there was a letter from Papa to say so. And he said not to worry, because perhaps Egbert and I could come to some arrangement, and that that would be much the best thing. But I’ve made up my mind to go out and earn my living. I think it’s rather romantic to earn one’s living and to be a penniless orphan instead of a great heiress. I think it’s frightfully romantic to be a penniless orphan, and in books they always have a frightfully exciting time. But great heiresses get married for their money, so I think it’s much better not to be one. Don’t tell anyone, but I answered an advertisement, and I got an answer, and I’m going to someone who wants a nice-looking girl for a secretary. I was afraid I might be too young, but he wrote and said he liked them young and wanted to know what colour my hair was and a lot of things like that. So I sent him the little snap-shot Mademoiselle took last term, and he said he was sure I should suit him, and I’m going there tomorrow. I haven’t told anyone. And—this is the most secret part of all, and what you’re most particularly not to tell anyone. And please tear this up, because you know you do leave letters about, and it’s most frightfully secret. I’m not calling myself Margot Standing, because I don’t want anyone to know where I am—Egbert, I mean, or Mr. Hale, or anyone. So I’m calling myself Esther Brandon. Don’t you think it’s a frightfully good name and very romantic? I didn’t make it up—I found it. I was really looking to see if I could find those