“Well,” began the Governor, “my uncle left all sorts of messages for you.”
He would, of course. Carefully refraining from asking what they were, I said mildly, “Thank you.”
“He’s back in London by now.”
“Yes.”
“I suppose if he’d stayed on much longer,” observed my employer, in a detached tone, “you wouldn’t!”
I said defensively, “I really had been thinking I might find myself obliged to go back to town at once!”
“After arranging to stay here for at least a fortnight,” he concluded quietly; “after having given notice at the office—”
“The office” was good! Just as if “the office” meant anything but himself, Mr. William Waters!
—“and having no people of your own to consider—what should you have said to mine?”
“I should have had to tell them that it was to—to attend a funeral!” I retorted, with a memory of Mrs. Skinner. “Or”—here I checked the suggestion of getting my hair singed and cut. I thought I’d better not begin by mentioning my hair! And I added recklessly—“or that I’d got to go to the dentist’s and have every one of my teeth out!”