Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/160

154 What was he, on earth, going to say? Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk were already interested; no one would have the decency to come in; and she was divided between her particular terror for him and her general curiosity. Yet she already saw with what brilliancy she could add, to carry the thing off, a little false knowledge to all her real. 'I quite understand,' she said with benevolent, with almost patronising quickness. 'The lady has forgotten what she did put.'

'Forgotten most wretchedly, and it's an immense inconvenience. It has only just been found that it didn't get there; so that if we could immediately have it'

'Immediately?'

'Every minute counts. You have,' he pleaded, 'surely got them on file?'

'So that you can see it on the spot?'

'Yes, please—this very minute.' The counter rang with his knuckles, with the knob of his stick, with his panic of alarm. 'Do, do hunt it up!' he repeated.

'I dare say we could get it for you,' the girl sweetly returned.