He ordered a meal to be served at seven. To pass the hour that must elapse before this and to throw off the lassitude brought on by his fatigue and the oppression of the day’s heavy, airless heat, he sought the bathroom and much cold water.
After the bath he felt better. He returned to his quarters whistling. Crossing his sitting-room to get to the bedroom which opened out of it, he saw something he had not noticed when going bath-wards. The whistling ceased abruptly. On the table in the centre of the room lay an envelope. His name was on it, in hurried, pencilled scrawl. The writing was feminine.
He ripped it open, read, and jumped for the door. The pink-cheeked chambermaid came running. She would not have believed this quiet gentleman could shout so loud, nor so angrily.
Anthony, his lank black hair dishevelled, his long, lean body swathed in a bath-gown, towered wrathfully above her.
“When did this note arrive?” He waved the envelope in her face.
The girl fingered her apron. “Oh, sir! It came this morning, please, sir. Lady left it, sir. Just after ten, it was. Mrs. Lermeesherer, sir.”
“I know, I know!” Anthony snorted. “But why in Satan’s name wasn’t I told about it when I got back this evening?” He went back into his room, slamming the door and feeling not a little ashamed of himself.
The little chambermaid clattered downstairs to discuss with her colleagues the strange effect of a note upon a gentleman before so pleasant.
Anthony clad himself with speed; then ran downstairs to the telephone. The answer to his first call was disappointing. No, Mrs. Lemesurier was not back; would not be, probably, until eight.
He rang off, swore, bethought him of his work, made sure that the door of the telephone cabinet was closed, lifted the receiver and asked for another number.
It was ten minutes before he left the cabinet and went slowly to his dinner. He ate little, fatigue, preoccupation, and the stifling heat of the evening combining to deprive him of appetite. Over coffee he reread his letter. It is a tribute to his self-restraint that he had delayed so long. It was a short letter, running thus:—
“Dear Mr. Gethryn,—I am sorry you were out: I wanted to apologise for my unpardonable behavior. I can’t think what made me so foolish; and quite see now that you had to talk to Jim and also that he was none the worse for the interview—in fact I hear from Mr. Hastings, who rang up early this morning, that he is ever so much better!
“If you are not too busy and would care to, do come and see us this evening. I would ask you to dinner, but we shall probably be late and have a very scrappy meal.
There is a peculiar and subtle and quite indefinable pleasure that comes to a man when the woman he loves first writes to him. Soever curt, soever banal the letter, there is no matter. It is something from Her to him; something altogether private and secret; something She has set down for him to read; something not to be shared with a sordid world.
Anthony lost himself in this sea of subtle delight, varying joy with outbursts against himself for having exhibited such boorishness and for being so insanely, so youthfully in love. “For, after all,” he told himself, “I haven’t known her for a week yet. I’ve spoken with her not a dozen times. I am clearly a fool!”
Unpleasant thoughts broke in upon him. He looked at his watch; then jumped to his feet and made his way upstairs to his rooms. He reached them mopping his forehead. He could not remember a day in England so oppressive.
He took his hat and turned to leave the room. As he did so a rush of wind swept in through the open window, and a long, low angry mutter of thunder came to his ears. Then, with a rush, came the rain; great sheets of it, glistening in the half-dusk.
Anthony put on a mackintosh, substituted a cap for the hat, and left the inn. He did not take his car. Even as he turned out of the yard into the cobbled street, the thunder changed from rumble to sharp, staccato reports, and three jagged swords of lightning tore the black of the sky.
Anthony strode on, hands thrust deep into pockets, chin burrowed into the upturned collar of the trench-coat. Incredibly almost, the volume of rain increased and increased.
II
Mr. Poole the butler—Anthony once said that he sounded like a game of Happy Families—was in a state of nervous agitation verging upon breakdown. The events of the past few days had shaken him, for some time an old man aged beyond his years, to such extent that he would not, he was sure, “ever be the same man again.”
He sat in the little room opposite that which had been the master’s study. He shivered with age, vague fears, and fervent distaste for the storm whose rain beat upon the windows, whose sudden furies of wind shook the old house, whose flashes of lightning played such havoc with the nerves.
Mr. Poole was alone. Miss Hoode had retired. Sir Arthur was reading in the billiard-room at the other end of the house. Belford was on three days’ holiday, his wife, it seemed, being an invalid. The other servants were certainly either in bed or huddled together moaning as women will at the violence of the storm.
Mr. Poole was alone. All manner of lurking terrors preyed upon him. There were noises. Sounds which seemed like the master’s voice. Sounds which seemed like the rustling of curtains,
