Lord Octavius Binyon let his quizzing glass fall again to hang from its black silk riband, and seized her hand. "Your respected father has given me permission to pay my addresses, Miss Merwin," he purred.
In a panic, Clarinda Merwin tugged at her captive hand. It might as well have been clamped in an iron shackle. Between the covers of circulating-library novels this kind of situation conveyed an appeal that quite failed to translate to real life. Hastily she bethought herself of what Pamela, in Mr. Richardson's famous book, would have said. "My lord, you presume!"
Such lamentably conventional protests rolled right off my lord, who simply possessed himself of her other hand. As he leaned close Clarinda shrank away from the combined odors of brandy, horse sweat, cigar smoke, and amber which clung to Lord Binyon's person. "A June wedding, I think," he mused. "The nights are so warm in June."
"That's a very coarse thing to consider," Clarinda flared. "And you merely assume I will accept you!"
"Of course you will accept me, my dear." Between his bristly black side whiskers Lord Binyon smiled. "Your parents ardently wish it."
"Mamma is a climber, and Papa a snob!" Clarinda wanted to retort, but before she could do so Lord Binyon applied his mouth to her own. His chin rasped against hers, and his arms cramped her ribs. When he released her she reeled back against the portieres.
"The engagement will be announced at the ball tonight," Lord Binyon said. "I must go down to consult with your father and his butler about the wines. But I will return soon, to lead you out in the dancing."
He smiled into her horrified eyes and then bowed himself out. Clarinda sank trembling into a chair and fumbled in her reticule for a handkerchief. She wiped her mouth again and again to get rid of the taste of him, in vain. At last she dared to spit, into the fire of course. Mamma would have swooned, but she felt a little better.
Clarinda had no intention of marrying Lord Binyon, any more than she would jump over the moon. But to defy her parents' fond wishes and anxious plans seemed only slightly less difficult. Fortunately Clarinda was a widely-read girl. She knew exactly what a female in her situation ought to do. With some difficulty, for the servants usually did the work, she opened the library window. Stripping off her long kid evening gloves, she stuffed them and the reticule behind a sofa. After dusting the windowsill with a cushion she perched on the sill and then, hitching up her straw-colored silk gown, swung her legs out.
To climb out a second-story window in a ball gown is not beyond the realm of human endeavor when one is fortified by a diet of romantic fiction. But to do so on the night of a ball is perhaps imprudent. Clarinda was annoyed to see that the street hummed with traffic, both horse and foot. Mrs. Merwin had invited every tonnish person of her acquaintance to witness her daughter's triumph, not to notice her escape.
Clarinda counted of course on being noticed by one particular person. In the novels which formed her sole literary diet Clarinda knew that the heroine's rescuer was invariably tall and handsome, well-born and well-heeled. "If only he's fair," she said to herself, as she shinnied down the ivy-cloaked wall. "After that odious Binyon creature I don't think I could countenance a dark-haired man."
So she felt no surprise when she glanced down and saw the shrubbery being pushed aside. "My hero!" she sighed, leaping lightly to the ground and turning to face her rescuer.
He was indeed fair. Alas, all the other attributes of a fictional hero--money appearance, leg, station, even humanity--were totally lacking. A short round creature looked up at her from a large yellow eye set in the middle of its round head. Three lesser eyes were set at apparently random intervals in what passed for the face. Thin orange fur or hair covered its skin, and it wore natty trousers of silvery cloth.
Without further comment Clarinda fainted.
)
