“Be glad, darling. It’s so much less wearing. By the way, are you now going to run upstairs and put on your hat?”
“Certainly not, Mr. Nesbitt,” said Cynthia with dignity and ran upstairs to do so.
Chapter XII.
Mr. Priestley Becomes an Uncle
It is to be recorded that when Mr. Priestley’s tour arrived in London, the member of it known variously as Miss Howard, Mrs. Spettigue, Miss Merrriman and Laura, did not slip away from it. She was hard put to it to explain to herself exactly why she did not, for opportunity after opportunity continued to present itself with sickening plausibility. Perhaps the reason she gave Cynthia later is as good as any: she simply hadn’t the heart. Anyhow, the consequence was that, some half-hour afterwards, Laura found herself walking delicately over the threshold of Mr. Priestley’s bachelor rooms, still in the rôle of a damsel in distress without a rag to her back or a penny in her purse; though now she had a roof to her head, Mr. Priestley’s.
The lender of the roof led her into his study and rang for his man. Twenty seconds later that functionary stood before him, pale, genteel, with a face as like a boiled egg as ever. Nothing had ever been known to disturb this Being, not even when Mr. Priestley, ten years younger and just beginning to open wondering eyes to the sinfulness of this world, had ostentatiously taken to locking up his cigars when not himself requiring the box; so far from being disturbed, all the Being had done was to take, unobtrusively and in a gentlemanly way, an impression of the cigar-cabinet key, walk along to the nearest locksmith’s and then proceed as before. If, therefore, anybody could have been so futile as to expect him to show signs of surprise at Mr. Priestley’s fracture of a life-long habit in spending an unexpected and unheralded night, and at that an unpacked-for night, away from home, returning the next afternoon with a personable young woman in tow, then that person deserved all the contempt which Barker would scorn to bestow on him. After all, Barker set a certain value on his contempt.
“You rang, sir?” said Barker, taking in Mr. Priestley’s somewhat unkempt appearance, his torn trouser-leg and the personable young woman at a single glance, and not batting an eyelid.
“Yes, some tea, please, Barker,” said Mr. Priestley briskly.
“Very good, sir.” Barker began to progress towards the door. Barker never did anything quite so vulgar as exactly to walk, nor did he precisely glide, chassis or slither; he just progressed. The sound of Mr. Priestley attacking his quite admirable fire stopped him. He retrogressed.
“Permit me, sir,” said Barker, neatly twitching the poker out of Mr. Priestley’s grasp. He dropped on one knee on the hearthrug as if about to breathe a prayer up the chimney, and lightly tapped three pieces of blazing coal. The fire was as perfect as a fire in this world can be, and Barker was not going to demean himself by pretending that he thought it anything else. But he was prepared lightly to tap three pieces of coal out of sheer courtesy.
Mr. Priestley also knew the fire was a perfectly admirable fire, though he was quite prepared to demean himself by pretending to think otherwise. He had, in fact, gripped the poker as a means of ensuring Barker’s presence in the room for another two minutes, by the end of which period Mr. Priestley devoutly hoped he would have jumped his next two fences. They were fences at which he shied a good deal.