And you happened to
pass, and I happened to remember Mrs. Shaw saying you looked like a
British peer, so I said: 'That is my friend Lord Ivy.' I said I was your
secretary, and he seemed greatly interested, and--" Kinney added
dismally, "I talked too much. I am _so_ sorry," he begged. "It's going
to be awful for you!" His eyes suddenly lit with hope. "Unless," he
whispered, "we can escape!"
The same thought was in my mind, but the idea was absurd, and
impracticable. I knew there was no escape. I knew we were sentenced at
sunrise to a most humiliating and disgraceful experience. The newspapers
would regard anything that concerned Lord Ivy as news. In my turn I also
saw the hideous headlines. What would my father and mother at Fairport
think; what would my old friends there think; and, what was of even
greater importance, how would Joyce & Carboy act? What chance was there
left me, after I had been arrested as an impostor, to become a
stenographer in the law courts--in time, a member of the bar? But I
found that what, for the moment, distressed me most was that the lovely
lady would consider me a knave or a fool.
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