Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/170

 ignore it. "What is it to me?" she asked herself angrily.

"Sir Ian has nothing to do with it, now," she said, and then began to speak of the journey; when they would start; where they would stop on the way to St. Pierre de Chartreuse; what sort of clothes they would need to take.

"And you must have a salary, you know," she told the girl, "because you will be my companion, and"

"No—no!" cried Nora. "I don't want money from you!"

"But you must take it unless you wish me to be very uncomfortable," Terry insisted. "I wouldn't dream of engaging a companion unless I gave her at least three pounds a week. I love to be exacting, and I couldn't be, conscientiously, unless I paid."

They both laughed a little: and when it was settled that they should start for France together the very next day, Terry rose, saying she must go back to the house. Mrs. Ricardo would be ready to say good-bye to Mrs. Haynes by this time. She took the girl's hand and pressed it cordially: then, when she would have released it, Nora clung to her. Evidently there was something she desired, yet dreaded, to say.

"Are you afraid of me again, after all?" Miss Ricardo asked.

No. But there's a question I—Do you suppose the—the police will let me go out of England?"