The Good Comrade | Page 9

spread frail

wings and protect her helpless belongings (old equally as much as
young) was strong upon her. The pushed open the dining-room door
and walked in.
"Father," she said, "is anything the matter?"
Both men turned, the stranger clearly surprised and annoyed by the
interruption, the Captain for a moment thinking of pulling himself
together and dismissing his daughter with a lie. But he did not do it; he
was too shaken to think quickly, also there was a sense of
reinforcement in her presence; this he did not realise; indeed, he
realised nothing except that she spoke again before he had collected
himself.
"Is it about the money Mr. Rawson-Clew lent you?" she asked.
He nodded, and she turned to the other man, who had risen on her
entrance, and now stood with his back to the evil-smelling stove which
Mary had lighted as usual in honour of Captain Polkington's visitors.
She measured him swiftly, and no detail escaped her; the well-bred
impassive face, where the annoyance caused by her entrance showed
only in the rather hard eyes; the straight figure, even the perfection of
his tailoring and the style of his boots--she summed it all up with the
rapidity of one who has had to depend on her wits before. And her wits
were to be depended on, for, in spite of the warmth of her protective
anger, she felt his superiority of person, position and ability, and, only
too probably, of cause also. She could have laughed at the contrast he
presented to her father and herself and the surroundings. It was perhaps
for this reason that she asked him maliciously, "Have you come to
collect the debt?"
The question went home. "Certainly not," he answered haughtily; "the
money--"
But the Captain prevented whatever he was going to say. "He thinks I
am an adventurer, a sharper," he bleated, now thoroughly throwing
himself on his daughter's protection; "his intention seems to be a
warning not to try to get anything more out of his cousin--something of

that sort."
Julia paid little attention to her father. "You were going to say," she
inquired serenely of Rawson-Clew, "something about the money, I
think?"
"No," he answered, with cold politeness. "I only meant to suggest that
this is perhaps rather an unpleasant subject for a lady."
He moved as if he would open the door for her, but she stood her
ground. "It is unpleasant," she said; "for that reason had we not better
get it over quickly? You have not come to collect the debt, you have
come, then, for what?"
"To make one or two things plain to Captain Polkington. I believe I
have succeeded; if so, he will no doubt tell you anything you wish to
know. Good afternoon," and he moved to the door on his own account,
whereupon Julia's calmness gave way.
"You do think my father an adventurer, then?" she said. "You think him
a sharper and your cousin a gull, and you came to warn him that if he
tried to get anything more in future it was you with whom he would
have to deal. And the money--you were going to say the money was not
what you came for because you never expected to see it again? But you
are wrong there; you shall see it; it will be repaid, every penny of it."
Rawson-Clew paused till she had finished; then, "I am sorry for any
misunderstanding there may have been," he said. "I trust you will
trouble yourself no farther in the matter," and he opened the door.
It was not a denial; it was not, so Julia considered, even an apology; to
her it seemed more like a polite request to mind her own business, and
she went up to her room after he had gone almost unjustly angry, too
angry for the time being to think about the rashness of her promise that
the debt should be paid.
"He thought us dirt," she said, sitting on the end of her narrow iron bed.
Then she smiled rather grimly. "And we are pretty much what he

thought us! Father sponged the money, and I decided to myself that the
repaying did not much matter. We are, as we looked to him, two
grubby little people of doubtful honesty, in a grubby room with
Bouquet," and she laughed outright, although she was alone, and the
faculty for seeing and deriding herself as others might, had a somewhat
bitter flavour. Nevertheless, she was very angry and quite determined
to pay the money somehow, so that at least it should appear to this man
that he was mistaken.
An hour later she carried Captain Polkington's tea down to him; when
tea was in the drawing-room his was always sent to him thus. She
found