“Oh dear! it’s over,” she said, “and I suppose we’ve got to begin again. What a nice day we’ve had. I—I quite forgot everything.”
Jim came home rather late that night, and found letters waiting for him in the little room where he had sat the night before. There was nothing of importance, and nothing that needed an answer, and in a few minutes he moved toward the door in order to go to bed. And then quite suddenly, with the pent-up rush of thought which all day he had dammed up in a corner of his brain, he realized what he had done, and his face went suddenly white, and strange noises buzzed in his ears, and his very soul was drowned in terror. But it was too late: his terror should have been imagined by him twenty-four hours ago. Now it was authentic; there was no imagination required, and he was alone with it.
CHAPTER X.
CLAUDE, as became the future candidate for the constituency of West Brentwood, was sedulous and regular in reading the House of Common debates, and two mornings later was sitting after breakfast with his Times in front of him, to which he devoted an attention less direct than was usual with him, for he expected every moment to be told that the visitor whom he was waiting for would be announced, and he could form no idea of what the visitor’s business might be. Half an hour ago he had been summoned to the telephone and found that he was speaking to one of the partners in Grayson’s bank, who asked if he could see him at once. No clue as to what so pressing a business might be was given him, and Mr. Humby, the partner who spoke to him, only said that he would start immediately. He had first telephoned, it appeared, to Claude’s flat, and his servant had given him the address.
In itself there was little here that was tangibly disquieting, for Claude stood outside the region of money troubles, but other things combined to make him, usually so serene, rather nervous and apprehensive. For the last day or two he had been vaguely anxious about his mother, who appeared to him not to be well, though in answer to his question she confessed to nothing more than July fatigue, while his relations with Dora, or rather his want of them, continued to perplex or distress him. She was evenly polite to him, she went out with him when occasion demanded, but that some barrier had been built between them he could no longer doubt. He had not only his own feeling to go upon, for his mother had remarked it, and asked if there was any trouble. Lady Osborne was the least imaginative of women, he was afraid, and her question had so emphasized it to his mind that he had determined, should no amelioration take place, to put a direct question to Dora about it. He would gladly have avoided that, for his instinct told him that the trouble was of a sort that could scarcely be healed by mere investigation, but the present position was rapidly growing intolerable. All these things made it difficult for him to concentrate his attention on the fiscal question, and it was almost with a sense of relief to him that the interruption he had been waiting for came.
He shook hands with Mr. Humby, who at once stated his business.
“I may be troubling you on a false alarm, Mr. Osborne,” he said, “but both my partners and I thought that one of us had better see you at once in order to set our minds at rest.”
“You have only just caught me,” said Claude. “I am going into the country before lunch.”
“Then I have saved myself a journey,” said Mr. Humby gravely.
He produced an envelope and took a cheque out of it.