“Anything to oblige,” the prince said, politely.
“W’ere’s the lights in ’ere? If they ain’t on in a jiff, Hi shoots, and there’s no tellin’ wot Hi’ll ’it—maybe nuthin’!”
Rosamond ran to the switch and turned it. Her vagabond was sitting on the window-sill, laughing.
“I suppose there was a pass-word once, to get out of this house?”
“Oh! how can you joke?” She burst into tears.
“That’s wot Hi say,” the constable concurred. “Wot’s frisky habout it? A blamed botheration is wot you are; and Hi’ve ’arf a mind to tell you so; ’arf a mind and mebbe a bit more! Come horf o’ that there winder-sill and sit hon the piany-stool. Come horf, now. Hi’ll sit right ’ere. Hit’ll be heasier to hoversee yer ’ere. Ma’am, shut the door. Not honly for syfety’s syke—’im bein’ such a slipp’ry customer—but the hearly mornin’ hair is bad for a sensitive man like wot Hi am hin a draught.”
“Rosamond!” She heard Howard’s voice, with a sharpness of authority in it that made her wince. As she returned to the living room, she was mutely imploring that some means might be put into her hands for the adequate and sufficient punishment of this man. She sank down upon the settee and turned her profile to him.
“I grieve to see you in distress,” he began very formally. The telephone tinkled. “Ringing off—can’t be another connection so soon,” he muttered. “For your own sake you must corroborate the story I shall tell.” The bell rang again, a longer tinkle. He frowned, but continued. “I have been thinking that it may be best”—the bell was ringing loudly now, Miss Potts losing her patience at the delay—“it may be best to tell Mrs. Witherby....” He surrendered and went to answer the call.
Rosamond heard wheels coming up the gravel road but she did not move. All hope of the prince’s escape was lost now, and with it all fear for herself. She sat still and limp, humped upon the settee, a symbolic figure of Dejection. Howard, having disposed of the last kind inquirer with less polite circumlocution than usual, re-entered.
“I want to make you understand, my dear Cousin....” (Miss Maria Potts inserted the plug again. He scowled, glanced toward the telephone then endeavoured to continue, regardless of the thin but insistent tinkle), “er—that you can rely on me, to any extent. I am in no haste personally to put the worst construction on this event.”