Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/257

 While Elbert searched his pockets for fourpence to purchase two tickets for Marble Arch, she insisted on relieving him of the parcel. Once restored to her care, she clung to it so tenaciously that the puzzled Elbert had reluctantly to give up the hope of getting it back again.

Going down in the lift to the trains, with the surge of fellow passengers guaranteeing a measure of safety, June allowed herself to conclude that Elbert, after all, might be less of a ruffian than he looked. If he had no graces of mind or mansion, he was yet not without a sort of rude care for her welfare. By no wish of his own was he seeing a distressed damsel to her home, yet the process of doing so, once he grew involved in it, seemed to minister in some degree to a latent sense of chivalry. At all events he had a scowl for anyone whose elbows came too near his charge.

Arriving at Marble Arch in due course, the heroic Elbert piloted the fugitive out of the station and across the road into Park Lane. Here, under a street lamp, they paused a moment to examine the label on the parcel for the number of the house they sought. Thirty-nine was the number, and it proved to be not the least imposing home in that plutocratic thoroughfare.

Elbert accompanied June as far as its doorstep. Before ringing the bell she said good-bye to her escort with all the gratitude she could muster, begging him to give her his name and address, so that she might at least restore to him the price of her fare. Yet the squire of dames saw no necessity for this. His scowl was softened a little by her thanks, but his only answer was to press the electric button and then, without a word, to slink abruptly away into the fog.