After wildernesses of time that were all but interminable, the attack
was completely over. It had lasted a hundred hours, of which the first
fifty had each been an age. It was a febrile attack similar to
George's, but less serious. Edwin had possibly caught the infection at
Knype Railway Station: yet who could tell? Now he was in the
drawing-room, shaved, clothed, but wearing slippers for a sign that he
was only convalescent, and because the doctor had forbidden him the
street. He sat in front of the fire, in the easy chair that had been
his father's favourite. On his left hand were an accumulation of
newspapers and a book; on his right, some business letters and documents
left by the assiduous Stifford after a visit of sympathy and of affairs.
The declining sun shone with weak goodwill on the garden.
"Please, sir, there's a lady," said the servant, opening the door.
He was startled. His first thought naturally was, "It's Hilda!" in
spite of the extreme improbability of it being Hilda. Hilda had never
set foot in his house. Nevertheless, supposing it was Hilda, Maggie
would assuredly come into the drawing-room--she could not do otherwise--
and the three-cornered interview would, he felt, be very trying. He
knew that Maggie, for some reason inexplicable by argument, was out of
sympathy with Hilda, as with Hilda's son. She had given him regular
news of George, who was now at about the same stage of convalescence as
himself, but she scarcely mentioned the mother, and he had not dared to
inquire. These thoughts flashed through his brain in an instant.
"Who is it?" he asked gruffly.
"I--I don't know, sir. Shall I ask?" replied the servant, blushing as
she perceived that once again she had sinned. She had never before been
in a house where aristocratic ceremony was carried to such excess as at
Edwin's. Her unconquerable instinct, upon opening the front door to a
well-dressed stranger, was to rush off and publish the news that
somebody mysterious and grand had come, leaving the noble visitor on the
door-mat. She had been instructed in the ritual proper to these crises,
but with little good result, for the crises took her unawares.
"Yes. Go and ask the name, and then tell my sister," said Edwin
shortly.
"Miss Clayhanger is gone out, sir."
"Well, run along," he told her impatiently.
He was standing anxiously near the door when she returned to the room.
"Please, sir, it's a Mrs Cannon, and it's you she wants."
"Show her in," he said, and to himself: "My God!"
In the ten seconds that elapsed before Hilda appeared he glanced at
himself in the mantel mirror, fidgeted with his necktie, and walked to
the window and back again to his chair. She had actually called to see
him! ... His agitation was extreme... But how like her it was to call
thus boldly! ... Maggie's absence was providential.
Hilda entered, to give him a lesson in blandness. She wore a veil, and
carried a muff--outworks of her self-protective, impassive demeanour.
She was pale, and as calm as pale. She would not take the easy chair
which he offered her. Useless to insist--she would not take it. He
brushed away letters and documents from the small chair to his right,
and she took that chair... Having taken it, she insisted that he should
resume the easy chair.
"I called just to say good-bye," she said. "I knew you couldn't come
out, and I'm going to-night."
"But surely he isn't fit to travel?" Edwin exclaimed.
"George? Not yet. I'm leaving him behind. You see I mustn't stay away
longer than's necessary."
She smiled, and lifted her veil as far as her nose. She had not smiled
before.
"Charlie's gone back?"
"Oh yes. Two days ago. He left a message for you."
"Yes. Maggie gave it me. By the way, I'm sorry she's not in."
"I've just seen her," said Hilda.
"Oh!"
"She came in to see Janet. They're having a cup of tea in George's
bedroom. So I put my things on and walked round here at once."
As Hilda made this surprising speech she gazed full at Edwin.
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