efore the arrival of a certain
lady--as a matter of fact, a lady who was on your ship and knows all
about Mr. Peter Storm. When _she_ appears on the scene she'll enter a
complaint, and the affair will be out of our hands. You will then be too
late to save Mrs. Shuster's secretary and your friend the chauffeur from
a nasty knock which may leave a black mark for the rest of his
life--make it hard for him to get new situations and that sort of
thing."

"Tell me quickly what to do and I will do it!" she said.

"Ask me as a favour to you to speak up for Storm. If you do I shall
grant the favour, no matter what it may cost me. But as it will most
likely cost me my membership when the story comes out later (which it
will) why, I sort of feel as if you'd hate to have me give you that
favour for nothing."

"I do not ask you to give it for nothing!" said she.

"But you do ask the favour. Is that what I'm to understand?"

"Yes. I do ask that."

"You don't think you'd better wait and hear what I want for my reward
before you decide?"

"No. Because whatever you want I will do rather than have Mr. Storm hurt
for life, when it was I who persuaded him to come." (I think she said
"me," but that's a detail. I adore her little slips!) "He objected,
because there were some good reasons he couldn't tell me for him _not_
to go to a big fashionable dance, but I thought that was just because he
was modest. I wanted to show him how I felt--how Molly Winston and _all_
of us feel, except you, the _Socialist_"--(I wish you could have heard
how she hissed that word at me!)--"so I begged him to come, to please
_me_. Then he told me he would, and now it seems I bring him to
humiliation. It is terrible! Yes, I will do anything to save him. And
now what is it you want?"

Poor little tragedy queen, I was almost sorry for her, in spite of her
tricks! But I was punishing her for her own future good. Think of the
difference for a girl between being Mrs. Edward Caspian and Mrs. Peter
Storm!

"Can you guess?" I asked.

"Perhaps I can; perhaps I can't. You had better put it into words, and
see how it sounds."

"Well, I only want you to say what your father wants you to say, and
what you let me think you might be willing to say, if you weren't so
young. I want you to be engaged to me. Once you've promised, I shall
feel safe, and won't press you too much or too soon for the rest. We can
talk the future over with Mr. Moore when we get back to Kidd