Part 83 (1/2)

'He must be good at spying. Next time I hope he'll find out something worth talking about.'

Alice was surprised.

'You know about it?'

'Just as much as Rodman, do you understand that?'

'You don't believe?'

She herself had doubts.

'It's nothing to you whether I believe it or not. Just be good enough in future to mind your own business; you'll have plenty of it before long.

I suppose that's what you brought me here for?'

She made no answer; she was vexed and puzzled.

'Have you anything else to say?'

Alice maintained a stubborn silence.

'Alice, have you anything more to tell me about Adela?'

'No, I haven't.'

'Then you might have spared me the trouble. Tell Rodman with my compliments that it would be as well for him to keep out of my way.'

He left her.

On quitting the house he walked at a great pace for a quarter of a mile before he remembered the necessity of taking either train or omnibus.

The latter was at hand, but when he had ridden for ten minutes the constant stoppages so irritated him that he jumped out and sought a hansom. Even thus he did not travel fast enough; it seemed an endless time before the ascent of Pentonville Hill began. He descended a little distance from his lodgings.

As he was paying the driver another hansom went by; he by chance saw the occupant, and it was Hubert Eldon. At least he felt convinced of it, and he was in no mind to balance the possibilities of mistake. The hansom had come from the street which Mutimer was just entering.

He found Adela engaged in cooking the dinner; she wore an ap.r.o.n, and the sleeves of her dress were pushed up. As he came into the room she looked at him with her patient smile; finding that he was in one of his worst tempers, she said nothing and went on with her work. A coa.r.s.e cloth was thrown over the table; on it lay a bowl of vegetables which she was preparing for the saucepan.

Perhaps it was the sight of her occupation, of the cheerful simplicity with which she addressed herself to work so unworthy of her; he could not speak at once as he had meant to. He examined her with eyes of angry, half foiled suspicion. She had occasion to pa.s.s him; he caught her arm and stayed her before him.

'What has Eldon been doing here?'

She paused and shrank a little.

'Mr. Eldon has not been here.'

He thought her face betrayed a guilty agitation.

'I happen to have met him going away. I think you'd better tell me the truth.'

'I have told you the truth. If Mr. Eldon has been to the house, I was not aware of it.'

He looked at her in silence for a moment, then asked: