CHAPTER XXXIV

HIS ARRIVAL

Ruth was as good as her word.

Next day she went to see Madame, and asked to be moved from the Third Floor.

Madame, the majestic, standing before the fire, dressed like a fashion-plate, put down her cigarette and looked at the young woman standing before her, slightly abashed, and uncertain how her request would be received.

She was genuinely fond of the girl, and had sent her to the Third Floor at some personal sacrifice because she wished her to have chances she would not get elsewhere.

Now she showed herself kind, if by no means understanding. She thought Ruth foolish and hinted as much. With foreign girls she could talk so much more plainly than with these wooden Englishwomen who understood so little. It was because Ruth was English, yet looked foreign, and showed a certain swift comprehension rare in her race, that Madame had taken to her at first.

However, she assented to the girl's request as always with a good grace, if reluctantly.

"Very well, Ruth," she said. "You are one of ze quiet ones, I see. Zey are too gay on ze Third Floor. I zought zey might be. It was only an egsperiment. One of ze maids on ze Second Floor is going next week. I vill move you zen. But you vill not get ze tips, you know. Bishops don't pay."

"Thank you, Ma'am," said Ruth, and left the room.

Two evenings later the Hohenzollern Express, as the non-stop train from Victoria to Beachbourne was called, brought an unusual number of visitors to the Hotel.

The palm-lined hall was packed with forlorn travellers, wandering about trying to find themselves; the clerks in the office were besieged; the porters run off their legs.

Ernie was on the lift that evening. He stood in the corridor, listening to the hubbub in the hall, and waiting for the first rush of visitors who had arranged themselves and appropriated keys, when he saw a man emerge from Madame's private sitting-room at the end of the passage.

Then he came marching resolutely down the corridor, absorbed, swift, direct, with eyes neither to right nor left, wearing a Burberry, and the short tooth-brush moustache that was still the rage in the British Army; a young man of a type so familiar to Ernie that he smiled on recognizing it.

The traveller entered the passenger-lift with a curt,

"Third Floor!"

It was Captain Royal.

Ernie had just been long enough away from the Regiment to see everything connected with it through the roseate mists of sentimentality.

He pulled the cord and the lift ascended.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said shyly. "Might you remember me?"

Royal turned his slate-blue eyes on the other, and extended a sudden hand.

"What! Caspar, the cricketer!" he cried with the gay nonchalance peculiar to him. "Rather!--that stand against the Rifle Brigade at Pindi? Yes. What! Got a job you like? What!"

"Pretty fair, sir," answered Ernie. "Home on long leave, sir?"

"Yes, six months. I'm going to work for the Staff College."

"All well with the Regiment when you left, sir?"

"Yes, thanks. All merry and bright. We won the Polo Cup. Mr. Ffloukes--you remember him in D Company--got himself mauled by a bear in the hills. Silly young feller. Quite unnecessary, I thought.... The Colonel's retired and come home. Living somewhere in these parts, I believe."

The lift stopped at the Third Floor.

Ernie carried the Captain's suit-case to his room.

"I'll bring your heavy luggage myself, sir," he said, for he had quite taken the other under his wing.

As he left the room he met Ruth.

Ernie beckoned her mysteriously.

"That's my old skipper," he whispered. "You look after him now. He's just all right."

Ruth regarded him with amused eyes.

"Why, you're quite excited," she said.

"Ah," answered Ernie. "We're Hammer-men, him and me. That's enough. _Quite_ enough." He disappeared down the shaft with a knowing and consequential air, hushing her with lordly hand.

The Captain rang for his hot water.

Ruth took it him.

He turned round as she entered and flashed his eyes at her curiously.

"Will you help me unpack?" he said quietly. "I haven't brought a man."

She knelt beside the suit-case, while he stood at the chest of drawers.

She handed him his clothes, and he arranged them orderly and with an unerring precision that appealed to her methodical mind.

His clothes were beautiful too: so fine, so fresh, so like himself, Ruth thought. She handled the silken shirts, when his back was turned, and stroked the flimsy vests.

Once he turned swiftly to find her pressing some diaphanous under-wear against her cheek.

He laughed; and she blushed.

"That's from Cashmere," he said. "Pleasant to the touch--what?"

"It's beautiful," answered Ruth.

When Ernie entered with the heavy luggage, Ruth was kneeling at the suit-case, the Captain standing over her.

Ernie's somewhat artificial enthusiasm suddenly melted away.

He wasn't very pleased.

The Captain had brought a quantity of luggage too, and clearly meant to make a prolonged stay.