The guests of Hercules

								

be going; and Reverend Mother would not let her half-sister even
mention, in that connection, the name of the other Mary--or
Marie--Grant, who also had gone away sensationally. The eldest of the
"three Maries," the three prettiest, most remarkable girls in the
convent school, had left mysteriously, in a black cloud of disgrace. She
had run off to join a lover who had turned out to be a married man,
unable to make her his wife, even if he wished; and sad, vague tidings
of the girl had drifted back to the convent since, as spray from the sea
is blown a long way on the wind.
Reverend Mother would not hear Lady MacMillan say, "Strange that the two
Mary Grants should be the only young women to leave you, except in the
ordinary way," the ordinary way being the end of school days for a girl,
or the end of life for a nun.
"I want dear Mary to be happy in the manner that's best for her,"
answered the good woman, whose outlook was very wide, though her orbit
was limited, "If it had been best for Mary to stay with us, she would
have stayed; or else some day, when she has learned enough to know that
the world can be disappointing, she will return. If that day ever comes,
she'll have a warm welcome, and it will be a great joy to us all; but
the next best thing will be hearing that she is happy in her new life;
and she promises to write often." Then the clever lady proceeded to ask
advice about Mary's wardrobe. Should the girl do such shopping as she
must do in Aberdeen, or should she wait and trust to the taste of Mrs.
Home-Davis, the widowed aunt in London, who had agreed to take charge of
her?
The question had fired Lady MacMillan to excitement, as Reverend Mother
knew it would. Lady MacMillan believed that she had taste in dress. She
was entirely mistaken in this idea; but that was not the point. Nothing
so entranced her as to give advice, and the picture of an unknown aunt
choosing clothes for Mary was unbearable. She made up her mind at once
that she would escort her young friend to London, and stay long enough
at some quiet hotel in Cromwell Road to see Mary "settled." Mrs.
Home-Davis lived in Cromwell Road; and it was an extra incentive to Lady
MacMillan that she would not be too far from the Oratory.
It was evening when the two arrived at King's Cross Station, after the
longest journey Mary had ever made. There was a black fog, cold and
heavy as a dripping fur coat. Out of its folds loomed motor-omnibuses,
monstrous mechanical demons such as Mary had never seen nor pictured.
The noise and rush of traffic stunned her into silence, as she drove
with her old friend in a four-wheeled cab toward Cromwell Road. There,
she imagined, would be peace and quiet; but not so. They stopped before
a house, past which a wild storm of motor-omnibuses and vans and
taxicabs and private cars swept ceaselessly in two directions. It seemed
impossible to Mary that people could live in such a place. She was