Part 37 (1/2)

”Do you also contemplate giving notice to the chef and his wife, our only chambermaid?”

”No, I don't,” I snapped. ”I think they were in bed.”

He looked at me as if he thought I had gone crazy. I wriggled uncomfortably in my chair for a second or two, and then abruptly announced that we'd better get to work. I have never ceased to wonder what construction he could have put on that stupid slip of the tongue.

I cannot explain why, but at the slightest unusual sound that morning I found myself shooting an involuntary glance at the imperturbable features of Ludwig the Red. Sometimes I stopped in the middle of a sentence, to look and to listen rather more intently than seemed absolutely necessary, and on each occasion I was obliged to begin the sentence all over again, because, for the life of me, I couldn't remember what it was I had set out to say in dictation. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e had an air of patient tolerance about him that irritated me intensely.

More than once I thought I detected him in the act of suppressing a smile.

At eleven o'clock, Blatchford came to the door. His ordinarily stoical features bore signs of a great, though subdued excitement. I had a fleeting glimpse of Britton in the distance,--a sort of pa.s.sing shadow, as it were.

”A note for you, sir, if you please,” said he. He was holding the salver almost on a level with his nose. It seemed to me that he was looking at it out of the corner of his eye.

My heart--my incomprehensible heart--gave a leap that sent the blood rus.h.i.+ng to my face. He advanced, not with his usual imposing tread but with a sprightliness that pleased me vastly. I took the little pearl grey envelope from the salver, and carelessly glanced at the superscription. There was a curious ringing in my ears.

”Thank you, Blatchford; that will do.”

”I beg pardon, sir, but there is to be an answer.”

”Oh,” said I. I had the feeling that at least fifty eyes were upon me, although I am bound to admit that both p.o.o.pend.y.k.e and the footman were actively engaged in looking in another direction.

I tore open the envelope.

”_Have you deserted me entirely? Won't you please come and see me?

Thanks 'for the violets, but I can't talk to violets, you know. Please come up for luncheon._”

I managed to dash off a brief note in a fairly nonchalant manner.

Blatchford almost committed the unpardonable crime of slamming the door behind him, he was in such a hurry to be off with the message.

Then I went over and stood above Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e.

”Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e,” said I slowly, darkly, ”what do you know about those violets?”

He quailed. ”I hope you don't mind, Mr. Smart. It's all right. I put one of your cards in, so that there couldn't be any mistake.”

CHAPTER XIII

I VISIT AND AM VISITED

Halfway up the winding stairways, I paused in some astonishment. It had just occurred to me that I was going up the steps two at a time and that my heart was beating like mad.

I reflected. Here was I racing along like a schoolboy, and wherefor?

What occasion was there for such unseemly haste? In the first place, it was now but a few minutes after eleven, and she had asked me for luncheon; there was no getting around that. At best luncheon was two hours off. So why was I galloping like this? The series of self-inflicted questions found me utterly unprepared; I couldn't answer one of them. My brain somehow couldn't get at them intelligently; I was befuddled. I progressed more slowly, more deliberately, finally coming to a full stop in a sitting posture in one of the window cas.e.m.e.nts, where I lighted a cigarette and proceeded to thresh the thing out in my mind before going any farther.

The fundamental problem was this: why was I breaking my neck to get to her before Blatchford had time to deliver my response to her appealing little note? It was something of a facer, and it set me to wondering. Why was I so eager? Could it be possible that there was anything in the speculation of my servants? I recalled the sensation of supreme delight that shot through me when I received her note, but after that a queer sort of oblivion seems to have surrounded me, from which I was but now emerging in a timely struggle for self-control.

There was something really startling about it, after all.

I profess to be a steady, level-headed, prosaic sort of person, and this surprising reversion to extreme youthfulness rather staggered me.

In fact it brought a cold chill of suspicion into existence. Grown-up men do not, as a rule, fly off the head unless confronted by some prodigious emotion, such as terror, grief or guilt. And yet here was I going into a perfect rampage of rapture over a simple, unconventional communication from a lady whom I had known for less than a month and for whom I had no real feeling of sympathy whatever. The chill of suspicion continued to increase.