Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/228

Rh of the moment, that she would not let Hatty leave Paris alone. She had suddenly awoke to the conscionsness that afternoon that the girl was seriously ill—far more ill than her brother imagined, or than Elizabeth herself had conjectured, when begging him to send for a doctor. It would be a sacrifice to leave her work; she did not deny it. But she was not a girl to shrink from a sacrifice where her affections were concerned. Alaric Baring would certainly be unable to accompany his sister. His daily bread depended on his following his profession, and what could he do at some dead-alive health resort? If there ever was a moment to prove that her friendship was not one of mere words, it was now.

She had reached this stage in her reflections, when one of the yellow, white-hatted fiacres, which are always supplied with hot-water tins for the feet, passed her. She did not see a face thrust out of the window, but was conscious that the fiacre pulled up immediately, and that some one jumped out. The next minute she heard Lord Robert's voice at her elbow.

"Just come from the Embassy, Miss Shaw. Heard a piece of news there may interest you. You don't mind my walking with you, I hope?"

"No. I am going home. What is your news?"

"Colonel Wybrowe is going to be married to the great American heiress, Miss Krupp. Five million dollars!"

"It doesn't interest me in the least, Lord Robert."

"You used to be a great friend of his."

"No; I never was that."

"Not when he sat to you, morning after morning, and you were angry because I wouldn't admire him?"