I haven't really tried. I have a little money saved, and I could
get one tomorrow if--"
She stopped him with a smiling gesture.
"I don't mean that--yet," she said. "I wanted to know whether it would
be possible for you to go away for a little time, if someone paid all
your expenses."
"To go away!" he repeated blankly. "What for?"
Mademoiselle Violet leaned a little nearer to him.
"My mistress asked me yesterday," she said, "if I knew anyone who
could be trusted who would go away, at a moment's notice, on an errand
for her."
"Your mistress," he repeated. "You really are a lady's maid, then, are
you?"
"Of course!" she answered impatiently. "Haven't I told you so before?
Now what do you say? Will you go?"
"I dunno," he answered thoughtfully. "If it had been for you, I don't
know that I'd have minded. I ain't fond of traveling."
"It is for me," she interrupted hastily. "If I can find her anyone who
will do what she wants, she will make my fortune. She has promised.
And then--"
"Well, and then?"
Mademoiselle Violet looked at him thoughtfully.
"I should not make any promises," she said demurely, "but things would
certainly be different."
The young man's blood was stirred. Mademoiselle Violet stood to him
for the whole wonderful world of romance, into which he had peered
dimly from behind the counter of an Islington emporium. Her low
voice--so strange to his ears after the shrill chatter of the young
ladies of his acquaintance--the mystery of her coming and going, all
went to give color to the single dream of his unimaginative life.
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