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Page 44
"Quite so."
There was another pause.
"It seems so funny that you should be going out as a lady's
maid."
"Yes?"
"But, of course, you have done it before."
"Yes."
"The really extraordinary thing is that we should be going to the
same people."
"Yes."
"It--it's remarkable, isn't it?"
"Yes."
Ashe reflected. No; he did not appear to have any further remarks
to make.
"Good-by for the present," he said.
"Good-by."
Ashe drifted out. He was conscious of a wish that he understood
girls. Girls, in his opinion, were odd.
When he had gone Joan Valentine hurried to the door and, having
opened it an inch, stood listening. When the sound of his door
closing came to her she ran down the stairs and out into Arundell
Street. She went to the Hotel Mathis.
"I wonder," she said to the sad-eyed waiter, "if you have a copy
of the Morning Post?"
The waiter, a child of romantic Italy, was only too anxious to
oblige youth and beauty. He disappeared and presently returned
with a crumpled copy. Joan thanked him with a bright smile.
Back in her room, she turned to the advertisement pages. She knew
that life was full of what the unthinking call coincidences; but
the miracle of Ashe having selected by chance the father of Aline
Peters as an employer was too much of a coincidence for her.
Suspicion furrowed her brow.
It did not take her long to discover the advertisement that had
sent Ashe hurrying in a taxicab to the offices of Messrs.
Mainprice, Mainprice & Boole. She had been looking for something
of the kind.
She read it through twice and smiled. Everything was very clear
to her. She looked at the ceiling above her and shook her head.
"You are quite a nice young man, Mr. Marson," she said softly;
"but you mustn't try to jump my claim. I dare say you need that
money too; but I'm afraid you must go without. I am going to have
it--and nobody else!"
CHAPTER V
The four-fifteen express slid softly out of Paddington Station
and Ashe Marson settled himself in the corner seat of his
second-class compartment. Opposite him Joan Valentine had begun
to read a magazine. Along the corridor, in a first-class smoking
compartment, Mr. Peters was lighting a big black cigar. Still
farther along the corridor, in a first-class non-smoking
compartment, Aline Peters looked through the window and thought
of many things.
In English trains the tipping classes travel first; valets,
lady's maids, footmen, nurses, and head stillroom maids, second;
and housemaids, grooms, and minor and inferior stillroom maids,
third. But for these social distinctions, the whole fabric of
society would collapse and anarchy stalk naked through the
land--as in the United States.
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