Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/245

 at all, and I wouldn't have you think so. I don't dare talk to you about the only way in which you could serve me, because I have promised not. I've promised Ian Barr, beside whom you are a coward, Sir Ian, a coward."

She was beautiful in her fierce young defiance, under the stars, and Sir Ian looked at her pitifully, as he might have looked at an angry child. "By and by you will tell me why you waited," he said. "It was not for the pleasure of calling me a coward, I think."

"Ian—my Ian—has been arrested."

"Arrested—where?"

"Here. He was with me, in the garden."

Sir Ian remained silent for a few seconds, thinking. "Impossible to arrest him in France," he said at last.

"It wasn't exactly an arrest, but they laid a trap for him, an English detective and two French policemen—and he didn't resist. If it hadn't been for me, perhaps he could have escaped. I haven't told Miss Ricardo yet. I was afraid if I went in I might miss you."

"You want me to try and help Barr."

"Sir Ian, I can beg nothing of you. If I did, I should be breaking the most solemn promise. Ian trusts me, and would never love me again if I broke it; otherwise I would break it now."

"What can I do for him?"