Old Weevil sat at her feet, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He was protecting Boodles, giving her happiness, he thought; but when he heard that cry it suggested to him that his false story might bring her in the end more sorrow than the truth. He could not go back now that he had gone so far. A lie is a rapid breeder of lies; and old Weevil, with his lack of memory, and natural instinct for the truth, was a man singularly ill-fitted for fictions. He had overlooked a great many things in his wild desire to make the child happy. It had never occurred to him that she would feel a natural love for her parents.

"I wanted to be kind to you, Boodles," he quavered. "I kept the truth from you because there were good reasons."

"What were they?"

"I can't tell you, darling," he answered truly. "You must not ask me,"

he said firmly, because she had touched upon a mystery which his inventive faculties were quite incapable of solving.

"And my mother--where is she?"

"Oh, she is dead," said Weevil cheerfully. He was not going to have any trouble with the mother, and he was sorry he had not killed the father too. "I told you she was drowned mysteriously."

"That was your wife, my grandmother. You are not playing with me? You are not deceiving me?" said Boodles pitifully.

"I'm trying to tell you, only it is all mixed up. It happened so long ago, and the Brute has worried me so much since that I don't seem able to remember anything very clearly. Your mother went out of the hotel one day, and never came back."

"Where?"

"Lausanne, the hotel where--"

"But she may be alive still," interrupted the child.

"Oh no, darling. Quite impossible. She was never heard of again, and it was nearly thirty years ago."

"Don't ramble. You are wandering off again. How could it be thirty years ago, when I'm only just eighteen?"

Weevil admitted the difficulty, and replied that he had been thinking just then of his wife. She would keep mixing herself up with the girl's mother.

"Now I'm getting at it," said Boodles, with a kind of fierce seriousness. "My mother is supposed to be dead. My father is in British Honduras--"

"British Guiana," corrected Weevil.

"Are you sure?"

"Almost certain. I looked it up on the map. I wish I had that piece of paper," the poor old man muttered.

"Well, it does not matter much for the present. You say my mother was Miss Lascelles, and my father was Canon Lascelles; but if my mother was your daughter her name would have been Weevil."

"So it was, my dear," he cried, with a new inspiration, "at least it would have been if--if--I mean, darling, my name is really Lascelles, only I changed it to Weevil when I lost my fortune."

"Why ever couldn't you have told me all this before? How is it that Canon Lascelles had the same name as you? Was he a relation?"

"Yes, darling, first cousin," he faltered, wondering if the story resembled that which he had told to Mr. Bellamie.

"So my name is really Lascelles?"

"t.i.tania Lascelles. But there are a lot of others. I was nearly forgetting them. You have a whole string of names, but I can't remember them now, except Katherine and Mary--ah, yes, and there was Fitzalan. I never could understand why they called you Fitzalan. I've got them all written down somewhere, and I'll read them to you presently. We called you t.i.ta after your mother, but I got into the way of calling you Boodles, which means beautiful, and have never got out of it."

"You told all this to Mr. Bellamie?" asked Boodles excitedly.

"I think so. I tried to," said Weevil hopefully.

"Then what does he mean by saying I am of low birth and have no name?"

she cried indignantly.

"Perhaps he did not understand. Perhaps he hadn't grasped it. I tell a story very badly, dear."

That point could not be disputed, and the child seized upon it eagerly.

There was no telling what wild rambling statements her grandfather might have poured into the ears of Aubrey's father. But she could tell him now she was quite a well-born little dame, and had a splendid name which was all her own, and she was really good enough for Aubrey after all. She put her head back upon the cushion and began to laugh because she was happy, the day was ending nicely, and she believed the story would end nicely too. She had cried because Aubrey was going away and for no other reason; at one time that afternoon she had not been sure of it, she had almost been afraid that the tears had been brought on by Mr. Bellamie's evil suggestions about her birth; but now she knew that she could hold up her nose with the best of them. She was accustomed to Weevil's eccentric language, his contradictions gave her no suspicions; she swallowed the rambling story whole and wanted more. There were so many questions to be asked and answered. She thought she would write to Aubrey and sign herself t.i.tania Lascelles with great flourishes.

"I am glad to hear you laughing, Boodles," said Weevil tenderly.

The poor old man was far from the laughing mood. He was indeed getting frightened at what he had done, and was wondering how he could carry it on, and how the story would end. Left to himself he would not have told the child anything; but she had caught him in an unguarded moment with a direct question, and he had been forced to answer without time to prepare himself by another rehearsal in private. He had hardly expected her to take things so seriously, forgetting how much the story meant to her, so utterly obsessed was his mind with the one great idea, which was her preservation from the Brute. Love blinds every one. The young it dazzles, like the sun low down on the horizon, so that they see no faults. Into the eyes of the old it flings dust to prevent them from seeing the end of the road.

"Now we must light the lamp and have supper," he said drearily, gently removing the child's other boot and pressing her warm little foot in his cold loving hand.

"I don't want lamps or suppers," she sighed. "What is that light, over in the corner?"

"I think it is the moon shining in between the curtains."

"The wind has got up. It's howling. I don't care, for I've got a name.

I'm not Boodles Blank any more. I'm tired and happy."

"I have given you a little happiness. Boodles?" he quavered.

"Heavensfull. You have always been a funny old daddy-man, and now that you are my grand-daddy-man you are funnier than ever. Fancy keeping me in the dark all the time! To-morrow you must tell me everything. What was my mother like? Go on. Tell me a lot about my mother."

"I don't know, Boodles--I mean I can't think to-night."

Weevil had left her, and was tumbling about the room, knocking himself against things and groaning. He was beginning to understand that his efforts to destroy the Brute might only end by investing him with new powers. But the child was happy, and that was everything; she was singing to herself, and laughing, and thinking of her mother; not the mother who had tied her up in fern and flung her at his door, but the mother who existed only in his fantastic brain. Suppose Mr. Bellamie had found it out. But that was impossible, for n.o.body knew except that unknown mother and himself. He was doing what was right. His little maid was perfectly happy then. Sufficient for that day was the happiness thereof. There was just one trouble remaining--the problem of Mr.

Bellamie's incredulity. Why had he not accepted the story which she was so ready to believe? Eccentric manner and contradictory statements did not explain everything. Mr. Bellamie had no right to put the whole story aside just because it had been badly told.

"I can tell you, Boodles. I have just found it out," he cried out of the darkness with a miserable sort of triumph. "There has been a lot of scandal about you, which I have never troubled to answer, and Mr.

Bellamie has heard it, and finds it easier to believe than what I told him. There is the Brute again. He makes people prefer scandal to the truth. n.o.body knows how you came to me, and so they invented a story to suit them. Everybody knows that story, and as I have not denied it Mr.

Bellamie believes it is true. I think I'll write to him to-morrow."

"How did I come to you?" asked Boodles.

"It's a long story," he faltered. "I can't tell you now because I am feeling so tired. I shall have to think about it all night," he muttered.

"Why did you make up that queer story about finding me one night at your door?"

"That is true. Your father chose that way of sending you to me," he said lamely. "I kept the truth from you because I was afraid you might not want to stay with me if you knew everything. Your father wished you to be kept in ignorance. I was going to tell you on your twenty-first birthday."

"You needn't have told me you thought I was a poor woman's child," she said reproachfully.

"I am very sorry, darling. I won't do it again," the poor old creature promised.