"It"s my opinion that you"re making a lot of fuss over nothing."
Mr. Bennett drew himself up as haughtily as a fat man in a dressing-gown can, but the effect was wasted on his companion, who had turned and gone into her room.
"Come in here," she said.
Tougher men than Mr. Bennett had found it impossible to resist the note of calm command in that voice, but for all that he reproached himself for his weakness in obeying.
"Sit down!" said Jane Hubbard.
She indicated a low stool beside the dressing-table.
"Put your tongue out!" she said, as Mr. Bennett, still under her strange influence, lowered himself on to the stool. "Further out! That"s right.
Keep it like that!"
"Ouch!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, bounding up.
"Don"t make such a noise! You"ll wake Mr. Hignett. Sit down again!"
"I...."
"Sit down!"
Mr. Bennett sat down. Miss Hubbard extended once more the hand holding the needle which had caused his outcry. He winced away from it desperately.
"Baby!" said Miss Hubbard reprovingly. "Why, I once sewed eighteen st.i.tches in a native bearer"s head, and he didn"t make half the fuss you"re making. Now, keep quite still."
Mr. Bennett did--for perhaps the s.p.a.ce of two seconds. Then he leaped from his seat once more. It was a tribute to the forceful personality of the fair surgeon, if one were needed, that the squeal he uttered was a subdued one. He was just about to speak--he had framed the opening words of a strong protest--when suddenly he became aware of something in his mouth, something small and hard. He removed it and examined it as it lay on his finger. It was a minute fragment of lobster-sh.e.l.l. And at the same time he became conscious of a marked improvement in the state of his tongue. The swelling had gone.
"I told you so!" said Jane Hubbard placidly. "What is it?"
"It--it appears to be a piece of...."
"Lobster-sh.e.l.l. And we had lobster for lunch. Good-night."
Half-way down the stairs, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Bennett that he wanted to sing. He wanted to sing very loud, and for quite some time. He restrained the impulse, and returned to bed. But relief such as his was too strong to keep bottled up. He wanted to tell someone all about it.
He needed a confidant.
Webster, the valet, awakened once again by the ringing of his bell, sighed resignedly and made his way downstairs.
"Did you ring, sir?"
"Webster," cried Mr. Bennett, "it"s all right! I"m not dying after all!
I"m not dying after all, Webster!"
"Very good, sir," said Webster. "Will there be anything further?"
CHAPTER XII
THE LURID PAST OF JNO. PETERS
"That"s right!" said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. "Work while you"re young, Sam, work while you"re young." He regarded his son"s bent head with affectionate approval. "What"s the book to-day?"
"Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence," said Sam, without looking up.
"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Highly improving and as interesting as a novel--some novels. There"s a splendid bit on, I think, page two hundred and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold and Customary Estates. It"s a wonderfully powerful situation. It appears--but I won"t spoil it for you. Mind you don"t skip to see how it all comes out in the end!" Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he addressed an imaginary ball with the mashie which he had taken out of his golf-bag. For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath for his weekly foursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad in tweed of a violent nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. "Sam!"
"Well?"
"Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of overlapping the little finger of the right hand.... Oh, by the way, Sam."
"Yes?"
"I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients will be coming in and asking for advice, and you"ll find yourself in difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You"d better lock the outer door."
"All right," said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading. He had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which--as of course you know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding in socage.
Sir Mallaby looked at his watch.
"Well, I"ll have to be going. See you later, Sam."
"Good-bye."
Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and twining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of consternation to his grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was an even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam"s mind, numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legal phraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a moment later his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, darted off and began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett.
Since they had last met, at Sir Mallaby"s dinner-table, Sam had told himself perhaps a hundred times that he cared nothing about Billie, that she had gone out of his life and was dead to him; but unfortunately he did not believe it. A man takes a deal of convincing on a point like this, and Sam had never succeeded in convincing himself for more than two minutes at a time. It was useless to pretend that he did not still love Billie more than ever, because he knew he did; and now, as the truth swept over him for the hundred and first time, he groaned hollowly and gave himself up to the grey despair which is the almost inseparable companion of young men in his position.
So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his father"s advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something, and Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to a.s.sist him.
Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the blighter might think there was n.o.body at home. But suppose he opened the door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He dropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk.
Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing.
There was another tap. Then, as he had antic.i.p.ated, the door opened.
Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to him that he was going to bring this delicate operation off with success. He felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in a similar crisis.
And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; only Napoleon would have seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inches of trousered legs were not sticking out, plainly visible to all who entered.
"Good morning," said a voice.
Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was the voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking hours.
"Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?" asked Billie, addressing the boots.
Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise.
"Dropped my pen," he mumbled, as he rose to the surface.