V.
From a window Mrs. Chater saw the bruised figure of her darling boy alight; with palpitating heart rushed to greet him.
“Bob! My boy! My boy! What has happened?”
Her boy brushed past; bounded to his room. Laboriously, sick with fear, the devoted mother toiled in pursuit—found him in his room tearing off his coat.
“My boy! My boy!”
Her boy bellowed: “Hot water!”
Can a mother's tender care cease towards the child she bare?
Oh! needless to ask such a question, you for whom is pictured this devoted woman plunging at breakneck speed for the bathroom, screaming as she runs: “Susan! Kate! Jane! Jane! Kate! Susan!”
Doors slammed, cries echoed, stairs shook, as trembling servants rushed responsive.
Crashing of cans, rushing of water, called them to the bathroom.
“Oh, m'am! What is it?”
Water flew in sprays as the agonised mother tested its temperature with her hands; cans rattled as she kicked them from where, in dragging one from the shelf, the others had clattered about her feet.
Jane, Kate, and Susan clustered in alarm about the door: “Oh, m'am! M'am! Whatever is it?”
Mrs. Chater gave no reply. Her can full, she plunged through them. This way and that they dodged to give her passage; dodge for dodge, demented, hysterical, she gave them—slopping boiling water on to agonised toes; bursting through at last; thundering up the stairs.
The three plunged after her: “Oh, m'am! M'am! Whatever is it?”
The devoted woman paused at the head of the stairs; screamed down orders: “Sticking-plaster! Lint! Cotton-wool! Mr. Bob has had an accident! Hot-water bottles! Ice! Doctor! Go for the doctor, one of you!”
A figure with battered face above vest and pants bounded from its room. “No!” Bob roared. “No!”
“No!” Mrs. Chater echoed, not knowing to what the negative applied, but hysterically commanding it.
“No!” screamed the agitated servants, one to another.
“No! no doctor!” bellowed Bob; grabbed the can from his mother; shot back to his room.
“No doctor!” Mrs. Chater screamed to the white-faced pack upon the stairs; fled after him.
“My boy! Tell me!”
Her boy raised his dripping face from the basin. “For God's sake shut the door!” he roared.
She did. “Tell me!” she trembled.
“It's that damned girl.”
“That girl?”
“Miss Humfray!”
“Miss Humfray! Done that to you! Oh, your poor face! Your poor face!”
“No!—no! Do be quiet, mother! Some infernal man she goes about with in the Park! I spoke to him and he set on me!”
“The infamous creature! The wicked, infamous girl! A bad girl, I knew it!—”
Agitated tapping at the door: “The cotton-wool m'am.” “Sticking-plaster, m'am.” “'Ot bottle, m'am.”
“Go away!” roared Bob. “Go away! O-oo, my face!” He hopped in wrath and pain. “Send those damned women away!”
Mrs. Chater rushed to the door. Passing, she for the first time caught full sight of her son's face now that the hot water had exposed its wreck. “Oh, your eyes! Your poor eyes! They're closing up!”
Bob staggered to the mirror; discovered the full horror of his marred beauty. “Curse it!” he groaned and gave an order.
Mrs. Chater flew to the telephone.
In the office of Mr. Samuel Hock, purveyor of meat, by appointment, to the Prince of Wales, the telephone bell sharply rang. Mr. Hock stepped to the receiver, listened, then bellowed an order into the shop:
“One of beefsteak to 14 Palace Gardens, sharp!”