JUNE felt a wild excitement, as she stood waiting for the answer to her ring. The stress of events had buoyed her up, but with Elbert no longer at her side and the door of a strange house confronting her, trolls were loose once more in her brain. A fresh wave of panic surged through her, and again she feared that she was going to faint.
The prompt opening of the door by a gravely dignified manservant acted as a strong restorative. June mustered the force of will to ask if she could see Miss Babraham. Such a request, made in a nervous and excited manner, gave pause to the footman, who at first could not bring himself to invite her into the large dimly lighted hall. Finally he did so; closed the door against the fog, and then asked her name with an air of profound disapproval, which at any other time must have proved highly embarrassing.
“I’m Miss Gedge,” said June. “From the second-hand shop in New Cross Street. Miss Babraham’ll remember me.”
The servant slowly repeated the fragmentary words in a low voice of cutting emphasis. “I’m afraid,” he said, while his eye descended to June’s shoes and up again, “Miss Babraham will not be able to see you to-night. However, I’ll inquire.”
Superciliously the footman crossed the hall, to discuss the matter with an unseen presence in its farthest shadows. The conference was brief but unsatisfactory, for a moment later the unseen presence slowly materialized into the august shape of a butler, who seemed at once to diminish the footman into a relative nothingness.
“Perhaps you’ll let me know your business,” said the butler, in a tone which implied that she could have no business, at any rate with Miss Babraham, at such an hour.
June, alas, could not explain the nature of her errand. These two men were so imposing, so unsympathetic, so harsh, so frightening that had life itself depended upon her answers, and in quite a special degree she now felt that it did, she was yet unequal to the task of making them effective.
“Miss Babraham cannot see you now,” said the slow-voiced butler, with an air of terrible finality.
“But I must see her. I simply must,” wildly persisted June.
“It’s impossible to see her now,” said the butler.
The words caused June to stagger back against the wall. In answer to her tragic eyes, the butler said reluctantly: “You had better call again some time to-morrow, and I’ll send in your name.”
“I—I must see her now,” June gasped wildly.
The butler was adamant. “You can’t possibly see her to-night.”
“Why can’t I?” said June, desperately.
“She is going to a ball.”
The words were like a blow. A vista of the fog outside and of herself wandering with her precious burden all night long in it homeless, penniless, desolate, came upon her with unnerving force. “But—please!—I must see her to-night,” she said, with a shudder of misery.
Faced by the butler’s pitiless air, June felt her slender hope to be ebbing away. She would be turned adrift in the night. And what would happen to her then? She could not walk the streets till daybreak with the Van Roon under her arm. Already she had reached the limit of endurance. The dark haze before her eyes bore witness to the fact that her strength was almost gone. No matter what the attitude of the butler towards her she must not think of quitting this place of refuge unless she was flung out bodily, for her trials here were nought by comparison with those awaiting her outside.
June’s defiance was very puzzling to the stern functionary who quite plainly was at a loss how to deal with it. But in the midst of these uncertainties the problem was unexpectedly solved for him. A glamour of white satin, jewels and fur appeared on the broad staircase. Miss Babraham descended slowly.
Once more was June upheld by a sense of Providence. Hope flickered again, a painful, fluctuating gleam. She sprang forward to intercept this vision of pure beauty, wildly calling the name “Miss Babraham! Miss Babraham!”
The dazzling creature was startled out of her glowing self-possession: “Why, who are you?” she cried.
In a gush of strange words, June strove to make clear that she was the girl from the antique shop in New Cross Street, and that her uncle, its proprietor, was a very wicked old man who was trying to steal a valuable picture that had been given to her. She pressed the Van Roon upon the astonished Miss Babraham and besought her to take care of it.
After that, June had only a very dim idea of what happened. She found herself in a sort of anteroom without knowing how she got there, with faces of a surprised curiosity around her. Foremost of these was the lovely Miss Babraham, a thing of sheer beauty in her ball-dress, who asked questions to which June could only give confused replies, and issued orders that she was not able to follow.
Everything began to grow more and more like a wild and terrible dream. Other people appeared on the scene, among whom June was just able to recognize the tall form of Sir Arthur Babraham. By then, however she no longer knew what she was doing or saying, for deep blanks were invading her consciousness; even the treasure in which her very soul was merged had somehow slipped from her mental grasp, and like everything else had ceased to have significance.