He pulled himself together with an effort that was like a physical exercise. He stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he invited her to sit down, and seated himself at the desk.
"Dropped my pen!" he gurgled again.
"Yes?" said Billie.
"Fountain-pen," babbled Sam, "with a broad nib."
"Yes?"
"A broad _gold_ nib," went on Sam, with the painful exact.i.tude which comes only from embarra.s.sment or the early stages of intoxication.
"Really?" said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely that this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly occurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the result of his struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and felt a trifle more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowes now began to a.s.sert itself to some extent. He must make an effort to appear as little of a fool as possible in this girl"s eyes. And what eyes they were!
Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in....
However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat and became cold and business-like,--the dry young lawyer.
"Er--how do you do, Miss Bennett?" he said with a question in his voice, raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this performance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he had some snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth. "Miss Bennett, I believe?"
The effect of the question upon Billie was disastrous. She had come to this office with beating heart, prepared to end all misunderstandings, to sob on her soul-mate"s shoulder and generally make everything up; but at this inane exhibition the fighting spirit of the Bennetts--which was fully as militant as that of the Marlowes--became roused. She told herself that she had been mistaken in supposing that she still loved this man. She was a proud girl and refused to admit herself capable of loving any man who looked at her as if she was something that the cat had brought in. She drew herself up stiffly.
"Yes," she replied. "How clever of you to remember me."
"I have a good memory."
"How nice! So have I!"
There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travel casually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring furtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought condition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmen were mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with that red hair peeping out beneath her hat and.... However!
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked in the sort of voice Widgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small man with bushy eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file.
"Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby."
"My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath.
Cannot I act as his subst.i.tute?"
"Do you know anything about the law?"
"Do I know anything about the law!" echoed Sam, amazed. "Do I know----!
Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when you came in."
"Oh, were you?" said Billie, interested. "Do you always read on the floor?"
"I told you I dropped my pen," said Sam coldly.
"And of course you couldn"t read without that! Well, as a matter of fact, this has nothing to do with Nisi--what you said."
"I have not specialised exclusively on Nisi Prius Evidence. I know the law in all its branches."
"Then what would you do if a man insisted on playing the orchestrion when you wanted to get to sleep?"
"The orchestrion?"
"Yes."
"The orchestrion, eh? Ah! H"m!" said Sam.
"You still haven"t made it quite clear," said Billie.
"I was thinking."
"Oh, if you want to _think_!"
"Tell me the facts," said Sam.
"Well, Mr. Mortimer and my father have taken a house together in the country...."
"I knew that."
"_What_ a memory you have!" said Billie kindly. "Well, for some reason or other they have quarrelled, and now Mr. Mortimer is doing everything he can to make father uncomfortable. Yesterday afternoon father wanted to sleep, and Mr. Mortimer started this orchestrion just to annoy him."
"I think--I"m not quite sure--I think that"s a tort," said Sam.
"A what?"
"Either a tort or a malfeasance."
"Why, you do know something about it after all!" cried Billie, startled into a sort of friendliness in spite of herself. And at the words and the sight of her quick smile Sam"s professional composure reeled on its foundations. He had half risen, with the purpose of springing up and babbling of the pa.s.sion that consumed him, when the chill reflection came to him that this girl had once said that she considered him ridiculous. If he let himself go, would she not continue to think him ridiculous? He sagged back into his seat; and at that moment there came another tap on the door which, opening, revealed the sinister face of the holiday-making Peters.
"Good morning, Mr. Samuel," said Jno. Peters. "Good morning, Miss Milliken. Oh!"
He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what he had taken at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and that the junior partner was engaged on a business conference. He left behind him a momentary silence.
"What a horrible-looking man!" said Billie, breaking it with a little gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite s.e.x like that at first sight.
"I beg your pardon?" said Sam absently.
"What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!"
For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of his Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend, Mr. Peters, whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for his trip to America, would have suggested nothing to him. As it was, it suggested a great deal. He had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minute he sat tingling under its impact. He was not a young man who often had brain-waves, and, when they came, they made him rather dizzy.
"Who is he?" asked Billie. "He seemed to know you? And who," she demanded after a slight pause, "is Miss Milliken?"
Sam drew a deep breath.
"It"s rather a sad story," he said. "His name is John Peters. He used to be clerk here."
"But he isn"t any longer?"
"No." Sam shook his head. "We had to get rid of him."