John noted with the warmest satisfaction that Miss Hamilton shuddered.
"Your poor brother," she murmured.
"Oh, he'll be all right," said John, hurriedly. "I'm equipping him with every kind of protection against insects. Only yesterday I discovered a most ingenious box which is guaranteed to keep one's tobacco from being devoured by cockroaches, and I thought Hugh looked very well in his pith helmet, didn't you?"
"I'm afraid I really didn't notice," Miss Hamilton replied, indifferently.
Soon after this conversation James' birthright was formally surrendered and John gave up contemplating himself upon a peak in Darien in order to contemplate himself as the head of an ancient and distinguished family. While the portraits were being hung in the library he discoursed upon the romance of lineage so volubly that he had a sudden dread of Miss Hamilton taking him for a snob, which he tried to counteract by putting into the mouth of Joan of Arc sentiments of the purest demophilism.
"I shall aim at getting all the material for the play complete by April 1st—my birthday, by the way. Yes, I shall be forty-three. And then I thought we might go into retreat and aim at finishing entirely by the end of June. That would enable Miss Bond to produce in September without hurrying the rehearsals. Lucretia will be produced over here in April. I think it would be rather jolly to finish off the play in France. Domrèmy, Bourges, Chinon, Orleans, Compiègne, Rouen—a delightful tour. You could have an aluminum typewriter...."
John's dreams of literature and life in France were interrupted by Mrs. Worfolk, who entered the room with a mystery upon her lips.
"There's the Reverend Armitage waiting to see you in the hall, sir. But he was looking so queer that I was in two minds if I ought to admit him or not. It was Elsa who happened to open the door. Well, I mean to say, Maud's upstairs doing her rooms, and Elsa was a bit frightened when she saw him, through her being engaged to a policeman and so her mind running on murders and such like. Of course as soon as I saw it was the Reverend Armitage I quieted her down. But he really does look most peculiar, if you'll pardon the obsivation on Mrs. Armitage's husband. I don't think he's actually barmy yet; but you know, he gives any one the idea he will be soon, and I thought you ought to be told before he started to rave up and down the house. He's got a funny look in his eye, the same as what a man once had who sat opposite me in a bus and five minutes afterwards jumped off on Hammersmith Bridge and threw himself into the river. Quite a sensation it created, I remember, and we all had to alight, so as the conductor could give what information he had to a policeman who'd only heard the splash."
Mrs. Worfolk had been too garrulous; before she had time to ascertain her master's views on the subject of admitting Laurence there was a tap at the door, and Laurence himself stalked into the room. Unquestionably, even to one who had not known him as a clergyman, he did present an odd appearance with his fur-lined cloak of voluminous black, his long hair, his bundle of manuscript and theatrical newspapers, and his tragic eye; the only article of attire that had survived his loss of faith was the clergyman's hat; but even that had lost its former meekness and now gave the effect of a farouche sombrero.
"Well met," he intoned, advancing solemnly into the room and gripping his brother-in-law's hand with dramatic effect. "I would converse with you, John."