“Now did he tell you where to go?”
“He gave me the address of his own lodgings.”
“What a convenient arrangement! Now, my dear, I beg you to waste no time. Send off a telegram, and pay the reply, and we’ll pack you off to-morrow. I am sure it is the right thing to do.”
A sudden conviction, painfully real, that he was behaving currishly, descended on Major Ames. The feeling was so entirely new to him that he would have liked to put it down to an obsession of gout in a new place—the conscience, for instance, for he could hardly believe that he should be self-accused of paltry conduct. He felt as if there must be some mistake about it. He almost wished that Amy had made difficulties; then there would have been the compensatory idea that she was behaving badly too. But she could not have conducted herself in a more guilelessly sympathetic manner; she seemed to find no inherent improbability in Dr. Evans having counselled Harrogate, no question as to the advisability of following his advice. It was almost unpleasant to him to have things made so pleasant.
But then this salutary impression was effaced, for anything that savoured of self-reproach could not long find harbourage in his mind. Instead, he pictured himself at Harrogate station, welcoming the Evans’. She would probably be looking rather tired and fragile after the journey, but he would have a cab ready for her, and tea would be awaiting them when they reached the lodgings....
CHAPTER IX
A week later Mrs. Ames was sitting at breakfast, with Harry opposite her, expecting the early post, and among the gifts of the early post a letter from her husband. He had written one very soon after his arrival at Harrogate, saying that he felt better already. The waters, as Amy had conjectured, could not be described as agreeable, since their composition chiefly consisted of those particular ingredients which gave to rotten eggs their characteristic savour, but what, so said the valiant, did a bad taste in the mouth matter, if you knew it was doing you good? An excellent band encouraged the swallowing of this disagreeable fluid, and by lunch-time baths and drinking were over for the day. He was looking forward to the Evans’ arrival; it would be pleasant to see somebody he knew. He would write again before many days.
The post arrived; there was a letter for her in the Major’s large sprawling handwriting, and she opened it. But it scarcely a letter: a blister of expletives covered the smoking pages ... and the Evans’—two of them—had arrived.
Mrs. Ames’ little toadlike face seldom expressed much more than a ladylike composure, but had Harry been watching his mother he might have thought that a shade of amusement hovered there.
“A letter from your father,” she said. “Rather a worried letter. The cure is lowering, I believe, and makes you feel out of sorts.”