CHAPTER IV
CAMILLA
Hugo dismissed Albert, with orders to continue his vigil, and then he rang for Simon.
'Do you think I might have some tea?' he asked.
'I am disposed to think you might, sir,' said Simon the cellarer. 'It is eight days since you indulged after dinner.'
'Bring me one cup, then, poured out.'
He was profoundly disturbed by Albert's news. He was, in fact, miserable. He had a physical pain in the region of the heart. He wished he could step off Love as one steps off an omnibus, but he found that Love resembled an express train more than an omnibus.
'Can she be secretly married to him?' he demanded half aloud, sipping at the tea.
The idea soothed him exactly as much as it alarmed him.
'The question is,' he murmured angrily, 'am I or am I not an ass?... At my age!'