Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/190

184 'Yes, but not only that. She has still another pull.'

'Another?'

Mrs. Jordan hesitated. 'Why, he was in something.'

Her comrade wondered. 'In what?'

'I don't know. Something bad. As I tell you, something was found.'

The girl stared. 'Well?'

'It would have been very bad for him. But she helped him some way—she recovered it, got hold of it. It's even said she stole it!'

Our young woman considered afresh. 'Why, it was what was found that precisely saved him.'

Mrs. Jordan, however, was positive. 'I beg your pardon. I happen to know.'

Her disciple faltered but an instant. 'Do you mean through Mr. Drake? Do they tell him these things?'

'A good servant,' said Mrs. Jordan, now thoroughly superior and proportionately sententious, 'doesn't need to be told! Her ladyship saved—as a woman so often saves!—the man she loves.'

This time our heroine took longer to recover