Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/164

 "I'm afraid I'm always doing those sort of things," she admitted with a laugh.

"Well, that's why I came to London, something drew me back again."

"How strange," she said seriously.

"Not at all. Some day perhaps I'll tell you what it was."

He longed to enquire why she was in Folkestone alone, instead he asked—

"How did you find the Ritz-Carlton?"

"Oh, at the last moment auntie decided that she liked the Belle Vue better, so we went there."

Beresford felt that he wanted to laugh. The grim humour of the situation appealed to him. Here had he been living expensively at the Ritz-Carlton for the sole purpose of meeting the Rain-Girl, while she had gone to another hotel not a hundred yards distant. He had considerably curtailed the period of his adventure by the reckless expenditure of his limited resources, and all in vain. Surely Fate was a mistress of irony.

"It—it was a little embarrassing last night," she said hesitatingly.

"I've never fainted before," he said a little shamefacedly. "I'm so sorry, and you were most awfully kind."

"You see I've been a nurse, a V.A.D."

"If you had not been there they would probably have poured the soup tureen over me, or cut off my trousers at the knee, or some such thing as that.