They turned as though they expected to see an apparition. Nor was the appearance of the speaker calculated to disappoint such expectations. Their startled eyes beheld indeed the most remarkable figure that had ever wheeled a bicycle down the platform of Torrydhulish Station.
Hatless, in evening clothes with blue lapels upon the coat, splashed liberally with mud, his feet equipped only with embroidered socks and saturated pumps, his shirt-front bestarred with souvenirs of all the soils for thirty miles, Count Bunker made a picture that lived long in their memories. Yet no foolish consciousness of his plight disturbed him as he addressed the Baron.
"Thank you, Baron, for escorting my fair friends so far. I shall now take them off your hands."
He smiled with pleasant familiarity upon the two astonished girls, and then started as though for the first time he recognized the Baroness.
"Baroness!" he cried, bowing profoundly, "this is a very unexpected pleasure! You came by the early train, I presume? A tiresome journey, isn't it?"
But bewilderment and suspicion were all that he could read in reply.
"What--what are YOU doing here?"
He was not in the least disconcerted.
"Meeting my cousins" (he indicated the Misses Gallosh and Maddison with an amiable glance), "whom the Baron has been kind enough to look after till my arrival."
Audaciously approaching more closely, he added, in a voice intended for her ear and the Baron's alone--"I must throw myself, I see, upon your mercy, and ask you not to tell any tales out of school. Cousins, you know, don't always want their meetings advertised--do they, Baron?"
Alicia's eyes softened a little.
"Then, they are really your----"
"Call 'em cousins, please! I have your pledge that you won't tell? Ah, Baron, your charming wife and I understand one another."
Then raising his voice for the benefit of the company generally--"Well, you two will want to have a little talk in the waiting-room, I've no doubt. We shall pace the platform.
Very fit Rudolph's looking, isn't he, Baroness?
You've no idea how his lungs have strengthened."
"His lungs!" exclaimed the Baroness in a changed voice.
Giving the Baron a wink to indicate that there lay the ace of trumps, he answered reassuringly--"When you learn how he has improved you'll forgive me, I'm sure, for taking him on this little trip.
Well, see you somewhere down the line, no doubt--I'm going by the same train."
He watched them pass into the waiting-room, and then turned an altered face to the two dumbfounded girls. It was expressive now solely of sympathy and contrition.
"Let us walk a little this way," he began, and thus having removed them safely from earshot of the waiting-room door, he addressed himself to the severest part of his task.
"My dear girls, I owe you I don't know how many apologies for presuming to claim you as my friends.
The acuteness of the emergency is my only excuse, and I throw myself most contritely upon your mercy!"
This second projection of himself upon a lady's mercy proved as successful as the first.
"Well," said Eleanor slowly, "I guess maybe we can forgive you for that; but what I want to know is--what's happened?--who's who?--and where just exactly are we?"
"That's just what I want to know too," added Eva sadly.
Indeed, they both had a hint of tears in their eyes, and in their voices.
"What has happened," replied the Count, "is that a couple of thoughtless masqueraders came up here to play a little joke, and succeeded in getting themselves into a scrape. For your share in getting us out of it we cannot feel too grateful."
"But, who is----?" the girls began together, and then stopped, with a rise of color and a suspicion of displeasure in their interchange of eyes.
"Who is who? Well, my friend is the Baron von Blitzenberg; and the lady is, as she stated, his wife."
"Then all this time----" began Eva.
"He was married!" Eleanor finished for her. "Oh, the heartless scoundrel! To think that I rescued him!"
"I wouldn't have either!" said Eva; "I mean if--if I had known he treated you so badly."
"Treated ME! I was only thinking of YOU, Miss Gallosh!"
