CHAPTER XVII
THEO SITS UP
Yes! It was all of a piece with the fiascoes of the day that my little watch gained ten minutes, hurrying me through my dressing and down, before I’d any need for such haste, into the drawing-room.
Here, big and black-and-white against the giant pink roses of the chintz couch, I found (as I needn’t have hoped not to find, on this day of contretemps!) my employer alone.
He sprang to his feet, of course, and wheeled forward a chair for me (looking as if he wished he could have pushed it and me through the French windows and out of the house for ever!—Goodness knows I reciprocated that wish!) and I sat down.
Then ensued what I’m beginning to call to myself “one of our pauses.”
But I felt that this evening my nerves wouldn’t stand silence—that nothing could float me over these quicksands of awkwardness but an unceasing ripple of small-talk. If he wouldn’t, I must say something; anything! The first thing that came into my head!
“H—how close it is! Do you think there will be thunder to-night?”
There was suppressed thunder enough on his face as he answered politely: “It is getting rather stifling. Perhaps you would like the window open?” and he rose and walked across to it.
Then, from under the chintz valance of the couch where he’d been sitting, there emerged at small and cringing form with an enormous white satin bow tied to his collar.