"Miss Morton to see you, sir."
There seemed a thousand "r"s" in both the Morton and the sir, and Anthony, who felt that there was something ominous and arresting in Hannah"s voice, was wide-awake before she could shut the door again.
Sure enough it was Meg, clad in a long grey dust-cloak and motor bonnet, the grey veil flung back from a very pale face.
Meg, looking a wispy little shadow of woe.
Anthony came forward with outstretched hands.
"Meg, my child, what good wind has blown you here this afternoon? I thought you were having ever such a gay time down in the country."
But Meg made no effort to grasp the greeting hands. On the contrary, she moved so that the whole width of the dining-room table was between them.
"Wait," she said, "you mustn"t shake hands with me till I tell you what I"ve done ... perhaps you won"t want to then."
And Anthony saw that she was trembling.
"Come and sit down," he said. "Something"s wrong, I can see. What is it?"
But she stood where she was, looking at him with large, tragic eyes; laid down a leather despatch-case she was carrying, and seized the edge of the table as if for support.
"I"d rather not sit down yet," she said. "Perhaps when you"ve heard what I"ve got to tell you, you"ll never want me to sit down in your house again ... and yet ... I did pray so you"d be here ... I knew it was most unlikely ... but I did pray so ... And you _are_ here."
Anthony was puzzled. Meg was not given to making scenes or going into heroics.
It was evident that something had happened to shake her out of her usual almost cynical calm.
"You"d be much better to sit down," he said, soothingly. "You see, if you stand, so must I, and it"s such an uncomfortable way of talking."
She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, took off her gloves, and two absurd small thumbs appeared above its edge, the knuckles white and tense with the strength of her grip.
Anthony seated himself in a deep chair beside the fireplace. He was in shadow. Meg faced the light, and he was shocked at the appearance of the little smitten face.
"Now tell me," he said gently, "just as little or as much as you like."
"This morning," she said hoa.r.s.ely, "I ran away with a man ... in a motor-car."
Anthony was certainly startled, but all he said was, "That being the case, why are you here, my dear, and what have you done with him?"
"He was married...."
"Have you only just found that out?"
"No, I knew it all along. His wife is hard and disagreeable and older than he is ... and he"s thirty-five ... and they can"t live together, and she won"t divorce him and he can"t divorce her ... and I loved him so much and thought how beautiful it would be to give up everything and make it up to him."
"Yes?" said Anthony, for Meg paused as though unable to go on.
"And it seemed very wonderful and n.o.ble to do this, and I forgot my poor little Papa and those boys in India, and you and Jan and Fay and ... I was very mad and very happy ... till this morning, when we actually went off in his car."
"But where," Anthony asked in a voice studiously even and quiet, "_are_ he and his car?"
"I don"t know," Meg said hopelessly, "unless they"re still at the place where we had lunch ... and I don"t suppose he"d stay there all this time...."
Anthony felt a great desire to laugh, but Meg looked so woebegone and desperately serious that he restrained the impulse and said very kindly: "I don"t yet understand how, having embarked upon such an enterprise, you happen to be here ... alone. Did you quarrel at lunch, or what?"
"We didn"t _have_ lunch," Meg exclaimed with a sob. "At least, I didn"t ... it was the lunch that did it."
"Did what?"
"Made me realise what I had done, and go away."
"Meg dear," said Anthony, striving desperately to keep his voice steady, "was it a very bad lunch?"
"I don"t know," she answered with the utmost seriousness. "We hadn"t begun; we were just going to, when I noticed his hands, and his nails were dirty, and they looked horrid, and suddenly it came over me that if I stayed ... those hands...."
She let go of the table, put her elbows upon it and hid her face in her hands.
Anthony made no sound, and presently, still with hidden face, she went on again:
"And in that minute I saw what I was doing, and that I could never be the same again, and I remembered my poor little dyspeptic Papa, and my dear, dear brothers so far away in India ... and you and Jan and Fay--_all_ the special people I pray for every single night and morning--and I felt that if I didn"t get away that minute I should die...."
"And how did you get away?"
"It was quite simple. There was something wrong with the car (that"s how he got his hands so dirty), and he"d sent for a mechanic, and just as we were sitting down to lunch, the waiter said the motor-man had come ...
and he went out to the garage to speak to him...."
"Yes?" Anthony remarked, for again Meg paused.
"So I just walked out of the front door. No one saw me, and the station was across the road, and I went right in and asked when there was a train to London, and there _was_ one going in five minutes; so I took a ticket and came straight here, for I knew somehow, even if you were all away, Hannah would let me stay ... just to-night. I knew she would ..."
and Meg began to sob feebly.
And, as if in response to the mention of her name, Hannah appeared, bearing a tray with tea upon it. Hannah was short and square; she stumped as she walked, and she carried a tray very high and stately, as though it were a sacrifice. As she came in Meg rose and hastily moved to the window, standing there with her back to the room.
"I thocht," said Hannah, as though challenging somebody to contradict her, "that Miss Morton would be the better for an egg to her tea. She looks just like a bit soap after a hard day"s washing."
"I had no lunch," said a m.u.f.fled, apologetic voice from the window.
"Come away, then, and take yer tea," Hannah said sharply. "Young leddies should have more sense than go fasting so many hours."
As it was evident that Hannah had no intention of leaving the room till she saw Meg sitting at the table, the girl came back and sat down.
"See that she gets her tea, sir," she said in a low, admonitory voice to Anthony. "She"s pretty far through."
The tray was set at the end of the table. Anthony came and sat down behind it.
"I"ll pour out," he said, "and until you"ve drunk one cup of tea, eaten one piece of bread-and-b.u.t.ter and one egg, you"re not to speak one word.
_I_ will talk."
He tried to, disjointedly and for the most part nonsense. Meg drank her tea, and to her own amazement ate up her egg and several pieces of bread-and-b.u.t.ter with the utmost relish.