‘Not Hastings? If he dares to show his nose here, I’ll get him hissed out of the place.’
‘No, no, something very different.’
‘Well, make haste,’ he said, in the grim voice of a tired man.
‘She is here—Cecily Raymond.’
‘What of that?’ He sat down, folded his arms, and crossed his ankles, the picture of dogged indifference.
‘Mervyn!’
‘What does it matter to me who comes or goes? Don’t stop to rehearse arrivals, but ring for something to eat. An atrocious mistral! My throat is like a turnpike road? Call it January? It is a mockery!’
Phœbe obeyed him; but she was in a ferment of wrath and consternation, and clear of nothing save that Cecily must be prepared for his appearance. She was leaving the room when he called her to ask what she was doing.
‘I am going to tell the others that you are come.’
‘Where are they?’