A Gentleman of Leisure, P. G. Wodehouse [speld decodable readers .TXT] 📗

horse, which had been cropping in a perfunctory manner at the short grass by the roadside, raised his head and neighed impatiently. There was something so human about the performance that Jimmy and the girl laughed simultaneously. The utter materialism of the neigh broke the spell. It was a noisy demand for food.

“Poor Dandy!” said Molly. “He knows he’s near home, and he knows it’s his dinnertime.”

“Are we near the castle, then?”

“It’s a long way round by the road, but we can cut across the fields. Aren’t these English fields and hedges just perfect? I love them! Of course I loved America, but⁠—”

“Have you left New York long?” asked Jimmy.

“We came over here about a month after you were at our house.”

“You didn’t spend much time there, then?”

“Father had just made a good deal of money in Wall Street. He must have been making it when I was on the Mauretania. He wanted to leave New York, so we didn’t wait. We were in London all the winter. Then we went over to Paris. It was there we met Sir Thomas Blunt and Lady Julia. Have you met them? They are Lord Dreever’s uncle and aunt.”

“I’ve met Lady Julia.”

“Do you like her?”

Jimmy hesitated.

“Well, you see⁠—”

“I know. She’s your hostess, but you haven’t started your visit yet, so you’ve just got time to say what you really think of her before you have to pretend she’s perfect.”

“Well⁠—”

“I detest her,” said Molly crisply. “I think she’s hard and hateful.”

“Well, I can’t say she struck me as a sort of female Cheeryble Brother. Lord Dreever introduced me to her at the station. She seemed to bear it pluckily, but with some difficulty.”

“She’s hateful,” repeated Molly. “So is he⁠—Sir Thomas, I mean. He’s one of those fussy, bullying little men. They both bully poor Lord Dreever till I wonder he doesn’t rebel. They treat him like a schoolboy. It makes me wild. It’s such a shame. He’s so nice and good-natured. I am so sorry for him.”

Jimmy listened to this outburst with mixed feelings. It was sweet of her to be so sympathetic; but was it merely sympathy? There had been a ring in her voice and a flush on her cheek which had suggested to Jimmy’s sensitive mind a personal interest in the downtrodden peer. Reason told him that it was foolish to be jealous of Lord Dreever. A good fellow, of course, but not to be taken seriously. The primitive man in him, on the other hand, made him hate all Molly’s male friends with an unreasoning hatred. Not that he hated Lord Dreever. He liked him. But he doubted if he could go on liking him for long if Molly were to continue in this sympathetic strain.

His affection for the absent one was not put to the test. Molly’s next remark had to do with Sir Thomas.

“The worst of it is,” she said, “father and Sir Thomas are such friends. In Paris they were always together. Father did him a very good turn.”

“How was that?”

“It was one afternoon just after we arrived. A man got into Lady Julia’s room while we were all out except father. Father saw him go into the room, and suspecting something was wrong, went in after him. The man was trying to steal Lady Julia’s jewels. He had opened the box where they were kept, and was actually holding her rope of diamonds in his hand when father found him. It’s the most magnificent thing I ever saw. Sir Thomas told father he gave a hundred thousand dollars for it.”

“But surely,” said Jimmy, “hadn’t the management of the hotel a safe for valuables?”

“Of course they had; but you don’t know Sir Thomas. He wasn’t going to trust any hotel safe. He’s the sort of man who insists on doing everything in his own way, and who always imagines he can do things better for himself than anyone else can do them for him. He had had this special box made, and would never keep the diamonds anywhere else. Naturally the thief opened it in a minute. A clever thief would have no difficulty with a thing like that.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, the man saw father and dropped the jewels, and ran off down the corridor. Father chased him a little way, but, of course, it was no good; so he went back and shouted and rang every bell he could see and gave the alarm, but the man was never found. Still, he left the diamonds. That was the great thing, after all. You must look at them tonight at dinner. They really are wonderful. Are you a judge of precious stones at all?”

“I am, rather,” said Jimmy; “in fact, a jeweller I once knew told me I had a natural gift in that direction. And so, of course, Sir Thomas was pretty grateful to your father?”

“He simply gushed. He couldn’t do enough for him. You see, if the diamonds had been stolen I’m sure Lady Julia would have made Sir Thomas buy her another rope just as good. He’s terrified of her, I’m certain. He tries not to show it; but he is. And besides having to pay another hundred thousand dollars, he would never have heard the last of it. It would have ruined his reputation for being infallible and doing everything better than anybody else.”

“But didn’t the mere fact that the thief got the jewels and was only stopped by a fluke from getting away with them do that?”

Molly bubbled with laughter.

“She never knew. Sir Thomas got back to the hotel an hour before she did. I’ve never seen such a busy hour. He had the manager up and harangued him, and swore him to secrecy⁠—which the poor manager was only too glad to agree to, because it wouldn’t have done the hotel any good to have it known. And the manager harangued the servants, and the servants harangued each other, and everybody talked at the same time, and father and I promised not