George could feel nothing but sympathy. It mastered other emotion in him, even the grey despair that had come her words. He could feel all that she was feeling.
“Tell me all about it,” he said.
“I met him in Wales last year.” Maud’s voice was a whisper. “The family found out, and I was hurried back here, and have been here ever since. That day when I met you I had managed to slip away from home. I had found out that he was in London, and I was going to meet him. Then I saw Percy, and got into your cab. It’s all been a horrible mistake. I’m sorry.”
“I see,” said George thoughtfully. “I see.”
His heart ached like a living wound. She had told so little, and he could guess so much. This unknown man who had triumphed seemed to sneer scornfully at him from the shadows.
“I’m sorry,” said Maud again.
“You mustn’t feel like that. How can I help you? That’s the point. What is it you want me to do?”
“But I can’t ask you now.”
“Of course you can. Why not?”
“Why–oh, I couldn’t!”
George managed to laugh. It was a laugh that did not sound convincing even to himself, but it served.
“That’s morbid,” he said. “Be sensible. You need help, and I may be able to give it. Surely a man isn’t barred for ever from doing you a service just because he happens to love you? Suppose you were drowning and Mr. Plummer was the only swimmer within call, wouldn’t you let him rescue you?”
“Mr. Plummer? What do you mean?”
“You’ve not forgotten that I was a reluctant ear-witness to his recent proposal of marriage?”
Maud uttered an exclamation.
“I never asked! How terrible of me. Were you much hurt?”
“Hurt?” George could not follow her.
“That night. When you were on the balcony, and–”
“Oh!” George understood. “Oh, no, hardly at all. A few scratches. I scraped my hands a little.”
“It was a wonderful thing to do,” said Maud, her admiration glowing for a man who could treat such a leap so lightly. She had always had a private theory that Lord Leonard, after performing the same feat, had bragged about it for the rest of his life.
“No, no, nothing,” said George, who had since wondered why he had ever made such a to-do about climbing up a perfectly stout sheet.
“It was splendid!”
George blushed.
“We are wandering from the main theme,” he said. “I want to help you. I came here at enormous expense to help you. How can I do it?”
Maud hesitated.
“I think you may be offended at my asking such a thing.”
“You needn’t.”
“You see, the whole trouble is that I can’t get in touch with Geoffrey. He’s in London, and I’m here. And any chance I might have of getting to London vanished that day I met you, when Percy saw me in Piccadilly.”
“How did your people find out it was you?”
“They asked me–straight out.”
“And you owned up?”
“I had to. I couldn’t tell them a direct lie.”
George thrilled. This was the girl he had had doubts of.
“So then it was worse then ever,” continued Maud. “I daren’t risk writing to Geoffrey and having the letter intercepted. I was wondering–I had the idea almost as soon as I found that you had come here–”
“You want me to take a letter from you and see that it reaches him. And then he can write back to my address, and I can smuggle the letter to you?”
“That’s exactly what I do want. But I almost didn’t like to ask.”
“Why not? I’ll be delighted to do it.”
“I’m so grateful.”
“Why, it’s nothing. I thought you were going to ask me to look in on your brother and smash another of his hats.”
Maud laughed delightedly. The whole tension of the situation had been eased for her. More and more she found herself liking George. Yet, deep down in her, she realized with a pang that for him there had been no easing of the situation. She was sad for George. The Plummers of this world she had consigned to what they declared would be perpetual sorrow with scarcely a twinge of regret. But George was different.