“Nay, I should say not, Loo. I would rather take him at his cheap moment.”
“Quite wrong, papa,—quite wrong. It is when his delusions are strongest that he will be most easily led. His own vanity will be the most effectual of all intoxications. But you may leave him to me without fear or misgiving.”
“I suppose so,” said he, dryly. And a silence of some minutes ensued. “Why are you taking such pains about your hair, Loo,” asked he, “if you are going in domino?”
“None can ever tell when or where they must unmask in this same life of ours, papa,” said she, laughingly; “and I have got such a habit of providing for casualties that I have actually arranged my papers and letters in the fashion they ought to be found in after my death.”
Holmes sighed. The thought of such a thing as death is always unwelcome to a man with a light auburn wig and a florid complexion, who wants to cheat Fate into the notion that he is hale and hearty, and who likes to fancy himself pretty much what he was fifteen or twenty years ago. And Holmes sighed with a feeling of compassionate sorrow for himself.
“By the way, papa,” said she, in a careless, easy tone, “where are you stopping?”
“At the Hôtel d'Italie, my dear.”
“What do you think,—had n't you better come here?”
“I don't exactly know, nor do I precisely see how.”
“Leave all that to me, papa. You shall have an invitation,—'Sir William Heathcote's compliments,' &c,—all in due form, in the course of the day, and I 'll give directions about your room. You have no servant, I hope?”