“Send somebody down to the door and tell him he needn’t come.”
“But, Anita,” wailed the other, “I can’t do that. I must see him, Nita. What a stupid thing you are! What difference does it make? If you don’t like him you needn’t show yourself. And if I send down a message like that he’ll be awfully suspicious. You remember how the police came just because my wretched doctor told somebody I had a gunshot wound in the leg?”
There was reason and intelligence in this, and though the woman was quivering between fear and fury, she had no course but to consent, and when, ten minutes later, the doctor’s foot sounded on the stairs outside, Anita Bellini disappeared into the bedroom, but did not go beyond earshot.
He was an elderly man, rather talkative and fussy, short and stout, with a cherubic face, and short, white side-whiskers.
“Bless my soul, I remember you now!” he said. He was one of the loud and jovial race of doctors that is fast dying out. “I remember you very well. You used to be a friend of the Dawlishes, didn’t you? Poor old Donald! What a good sort! Now, let me look at this leg of yours.”
He examined the wound, which was little more than a scar, and, to Greta’s dismay, pronounced her fit to travel.
“You’ll have to take care of yourself for a week or two,” he said conventionally, and returned to the topic his examination had interrupted. “Yes, I was with old Donald two days before he died, from morning till night, hoping against hope that I could do something for him. For twenty-four hours I never stirred from his side. Poor old Donald! He died six hours after I left him, with my dear friend, Sir Paul Grayley, one of the best doctors that ever lived.”
Old Mr. Wesley was blessed with this disposition, that all the people he knew were the best people that ever lived, and all who were bereft of his acquaintance came under the generic heading of “poor souls.”
“Very bad business about his boy, poor soul!” He shook his hoary head. “Terribly bad business. I didn’t know Peter personally—never met him. But when I heard of this fearful thing he’d done, I said to myself, ‘My boy, if the news has to be broken to Donald, you’re the man to do it.’ ”
He was very talkative, very delightful, very human, but Greta was annoyed with him and gave him little encouragement to stay. As for the woman standing in the darkness of the bedroom, had her wishes materialized, old Mr. Wesley would have been swept from the face of the earth.
Presently he was gone, and she came out from her listening post.
“Apparently you can move without dying,” she said sarcastically.
“Apparently I can, if I want to move.” Greta’s voice was husky. She was back in her last trench, conscious of a great shortage of ammunition. “And I don’t want to move, and that’s flat! I can’t understand why you hate that dear old man. I admit he’s fearfully chatty, but that’s no reason why you should throw a fit at the mention of his name.”
“When I want your opinion about my peculiarities I will ask you for them,” bullied Anita, and it was a wrong move, as she realized.
Mrs. Gurden shrugged her shoulders rapidly.
“If that’s the tone you’re going to adopt,” she said, with an heroic assumption of boldness, “the sooner we part the better, Anita. You’ve stopped the paper, but I think I’m entitled to some money instead of notice; and if it comes to that, I’ve had no salary for a month. And as to going down to your beastly old Towers, I simply won’t, so there!”
The Princess forced a smile.
“My dear Greta, you’re getting theatrical. But I realize you’re not quite yourself. Now, don’t be a little fool, come and rest with me for a week or two. There are one or two big schemes I want to talk over with you, and afterwards we’ll pack up and go to Capri or Monte Carlo or somewhere a little more cheerful than Wimbledon.”
“I won’t!”
It required a tremendous amount of courage to utter those two words of defiance, but it was zero hour to Greta Gurden, and for the moment she had all the ferocity of a mad sheep.
“I simply won’t! If I’ve got to earn my own living I’ll earn it. I can get a job on Fleet Fashions—I was offered one last week. I’m tired of your domination and your bullying, and—well, I simply won’t go to Wimbledon, and that’s a fact!”
Here was a resistance which Anita Bellini had never anticipated. There was not the stuff of sweet reasonableness in her. She had made her way in the world by the force of her character, and her simulations had been confined to hiding her too frequent fits of anger. It was not in her to persuade—she must command or do nothing.
“You’re going to make me look foolish. I’ve promised—”
“I don’t care what I make you look.” Greta’s head was quivering with determination. “It’s not my fault. And whom have you promised?” Without waiting for a reply: “You know how I loath that house at Wimbledon and those awfully creepy Japanese men of yours.”
“Javanese. They’re quite nice people. If you refer to your encyclopaedia you will discover they are inoffensive, peace-loving, and domestic.”
But sarcasm was wasted on Greta.
“That may be or may not be,” she said. “All I know is that I’m not coming with you.”
“Stay and be—stay till tomorrow!” snapped the elder woman. “I shan’t waste my time or go down on my hands and knees to you. You owe me a lot, Greta—”
“You owe me a month’s salary,” said the spirited Greta, with admirable courage, “and three months’ notice.”
Her hands trembling with rage, Anita tore open her bag and flung a packet of one-pound notes on the table. Without another word
