Mr. Bennett crossed the lawn, and sat down beside his daughter. Smith, the bulldog, raising a sleepy head, breathed heavily; but Mr. Bennett did not quail. Of late, relations of distant but solid friendship had come to exist between them. Sceptical at first, Mr. Bennett had at length allowed himself to be persuaded of the mildness of the animal’s nature and the essential purity of his motives; and now it was only when they encountered each other unexpectedly round sharp corners that he ever betrayed the slightest alarm. So now, while Smith slept on the grass, Mr. Bennett reclined in the chair. It was the nearest thing modern civilization had seen to the lion lying down with the lamb.
“Sketching?” said Mr. Bennett.
“Yes,” said Billie, for there were no secrets between this girl and her father. At least, not many. She occasionally omitted to tell him some such trifle as that she had met Samuel Marlowe on the previous morning in a leafy lane, and intended to meet him again this afternoon, but apart from that her mind was an open book.
“It’s a great morning,” said Mr. Bennett.
“So peaceful,” said Billie.
“The eggs you get in the country in England,” said Mr. Bennett, suddenly striking a lyrical note, “are extraordinary. I had three for breakfast this morning which defied competition, simply defied competition. They were large and brown, and as fresh as new-mown-hay!”
He mused for a while in a sort of ecstasy.
“And the hams!” he went on. “The ham I had for breakfast was what I call ham! I don’t know when I’ve had ham like that. I suppose it’s something they feed the pigs,” he concluded, in soft meditation. And he gave a little sigh. Life was very beautiful.
Silence fell, broken only by the snoring of Smith. Billie was thinking of Sam, and of what Sam had said to her in the lane yesterday; of his clean-cut face, and the look in his eyes—so vastly superior to any look that ever came into the eyes of Bream Mortimer. She was telling herself that her relations with Sam were an idyll; for, being young and romantic, she enjoyed this freshet of surreptitious meetings which had come to enliven the stream of her life. It was pleasant to go warily into deep lanes where forbidden love lurked. She cast a swift side-glance at her father— the unconscious ogre in her fairy-story. What would he say if he knew? But Mr. Bennett did not know, and consequently continued to meditate peacefully on ham.
They had sat like this for perhaps a minute—two happy mortals lulled by the gentle beauty of the day—when from the window of the drawing-room there stepped out a white-capped maid. And one may just as well say at once—and have done with it—that this is the point where the quiet, peaceful scene in domestic life terminates with a jerk, and pity and terror resume work at the old stand.
The maid—her name, not that it matters, was Susan, and she was engaged to be married, though the point is of no importance, to the second assistant at Green’s Grocery Stores in Windlehurst—approached Mr. Bennett.
“Please, sir, a gentleman to see you.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Bennett, torn from a dream of large pink slices edged with bread-crumbed fat. “Eh?”
“A gentleman to see you, sir. In the drawing-room. He says you are expecting him.”
“Of course, yes. To be sure.”
Mr. Bennett heaved himself out of the deck-chair. Beyond the French windows he could see an indistinct form in a gray suit, and remembered that this was the morning on which Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s clerk—who was taking those Schultz and Bowen papers for him to America—had written that he would call. To-day was Friday; no doubt the man was sailing from Southampton to-morrow.
He crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room, and found Mr. Jno. Peters with an expression on his ill-favored face, which looked like one of consternation, of uneasiness, even of alarm.
“Morning, Mr. Peters,” said Mr. Bennett. “Very good of you to run down. Take a seat, and I’ll just go through the few notes I have made about the matter.”
“Mr. Bennett,” exclaimed Jno. Peters. “May—may I speak?”
“What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?”
Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at the unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a duty, and he did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since, gazing appreciatively through the drawing-room windows at the charming scene outside, he had caught sight of the unforgettable form of Billie, seated in her chair with the sketching-block on her knee, he had realised that he could not go away in silence, leaving Mr. Bennett ignorant of what he was up against.
One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some kind on this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it seemed to leave his peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been feeling notably happy during his journey in the train from London, and the subsequent walk from the station. The splendor of the morning had soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew inshore from the sea spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There was a jar of pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived considerable pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the pink, without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and seen Billie.
“Mr. Bennett,” he said, “I don’t want to do anybody any harm, and, if you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I think it is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in the head. I don’t say she’s dangerous, but she isn’t compos. She decidedly is
Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought crossed his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters’ sanity went down to zero.
“What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?”
It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other’s wealth and business connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He particularised.
“I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee.”
“What! What!” Mr. Bennett spluttered. “Do you know who that is?” he exclaimed.
