“Ach! I shall carry it off gaily,” he thought, and leaping lightly to the ground, exclaimed with a genial air, as he gave his hand to Eva.
“Vell! Now have I a leetle surprise for you, ladies!”
Nor did he at all exaggerate their sensation.
Alas, that it should be so far beyond the power of mere inky words to express all that was implied in Eva's accents!
Nor is it less impossible to supply the significance of Eleanor's intonation.
“Ladies, ladies!” he implored, “do not, I pray you, misunderstand! I vas not responsible--I could not help it. You both VOULD come mit me! No, no, do not look so at me! I mean not zat--I mean I could not do vizout both of you. Ach, Himmel! Vat do I say? I should say zat--zat----”
He broke off with a start of apprehension.
“Look! Zere comes a man mit a bicycle! Zis is too public! Come mit me into ze station and I shall eggsplain! He waves his fist! Come! you vould not be seen here?”
He offered one arm to Eva, the other to Eleanor; and so alarming were the gesticulations of the approaching cyclist, and so beseeching the Baron's tones, that without more ado they clung to him and hurried on to the platform.
“Come to ze vaiting-room!” he whispered. “Zere shall ve be safe!”
Alack for the luck of the Baron von Blitzenberg! Out of the very door they were approaching stepped a solitary lady, sole passenger from the south train, and at the sight of those three, linked arm in arm, she staggered back and uttered a cry more piercing than the engine's distant whistle.
His rescuers said nothing, but clung to him the more tightly, while in the Baroness's startled eyes a harder light began to blaze.
He cleared his throat, but the process seemed to take some time, and in the meanwhile he felt the grip of his deliverers relax.
The Baron felt his arms freed now; but still his Alicia waited an answer. It came at last, but not from the Baron's lips.
“Well, here you all are!” said a cheerful voice behind them.
They turned as though they expected to see an apparition. Nor was the appearance of the speaker calculated to disappoint such expectations. Their startled eyes beheld indeed the most remarkable figure that had ever wheeled a bicycle down the platform of Torrydhulish Station. Hatless, in evening clothes with blue lapels upon the coat, splashed liberally with mud, his feet equipped only with embroidered socks and saturated pumps, his shirt-front bestarred with souvenirs of all the soils for thirty miles, Count Bunker made a picture that lived long in their memories. Yet no foolish consciousness of his plight disturbed him as he addressed the Baron.