“The British merchant? Already? And the day so young! What, may I inquire, led to so decided a difference of opinion? Had you been discussing politics, or a rise in sugar?”
“Don’t chaff, Fordham. It’s no laughing matter to me. He says his daughter hasn’t had a wink of sleep all night.”
“No more has he, I should say, since he looses his combative instincts thus early. No more have I—thanks to the nailed boots of the gospel—grinders aforesaid. Well, the only thing I can suggest is that he should send down to Sierre and get her a sleeping draught.”
“He says she has lain awake all night, and is quite ill, and it’s entirely my doing.”
“Ah! I begin to see. Her room is underneath yours, I take it. Well, I always said you had rather a heavy hoof.”
“Fordham, do be serious. Don’t you see, man? You were there when they arrived yesterday—and er—er—he swears he’ll bring an action for breach of promise against me? Now do you see?”
“And he’s just the sort of animal who would do it too,” rejoined the other coolly, spreading a fresh lather upon his chin.
“Well, that’s not all—nor even the worst of it. I’m in a proper sort of hole, I can tell you,” said poor Phil, despairingly dropping into a chair and lighting up a Vevey cheroot.
“Wait a minute, Phil,” said Fordham, turning with his razor in mid-air. “There’s a time for all things and, it might be added, a place. Now I’ve a strong suspicion that the partition walls between these rooms are unconscionably thin, and that being so we had better postpone our council of war until we have got outside of our toast and coffee, and then adjourn with pipes to some sequestered spot where undisturbed we can concert plans for the discomfiture of the enemy. But, look here, you must pull yourself together. You are looking a cross between a scarecrow and a galvanised skull. Man alive, you’ll furnish sport to all the women in the house if they see you going about like this.”
“What a good chap you are, Fordham,” said poor Philip, gratefully. He was looking wretchedly pulled down and haggard, as the other had said, for he had had very little sleep. No one would have recognised the bright, handsome sunny face of yesterday. He looked a dozen years older. Even Alma, burning with outraged pride, must have pitied him.