“You bolted the door, and got the mattress on to the floor, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
There was a long pause, and it seemed as if the words would never come.
“I am awfully sorry, Chum.”
“How was it?” she said, half under her breath. The troubled eyes of husband and wife met across the gay little table, glittering with their wedding silver and glass, and rich with strange tropical fruit and flowers. Ally and Chum had always revelled in the Key’land breakfast and their foreign dishes and luxuries,—somehow the sight of it between them now made what they had to say seem more tragic by contrast.
“It was so awfully hot!” Ally said lamely. “On my honour, it’s a solitary instance. I haven’t been squiffy like that except once or twice before in my life.”
An uncomfortable memory of the Churtons’ stoep was making him wretched, and the flavour of that episode tasted worse in his mouth than stale cého. He fidgeted with the fruit, while Chum on her side of the table was absorbed by the worse revelation that she had to make.
“Did you hear anything in town yesterday about the people being discontented?” she said, feeling the difficulty like a stone wall before her. “I asked you through the telephone, but you said no, then,—perhaps you knew of it later.”
“No, I heard nothing. Is there anything fresh?” Ally was relieved at the change of subject.
“There was the threatening of a rising——”