“He’s going to Scotland. I know he is. I insist on seeing him.”
“Yes, tomorrow.”
“I knew it was our last chance.”
“How do you do, Mr. Bast?” said Margaret, trying to control her voice. “This is an odd business. What view do you take of it?”
“There is Mrs. Bast, too,” prompted Helen.
Jacky also shook hands. She, like her husband, was shy, and, furthermore, ill, and furthermore, so bestially stupid that she could not grasp what was happening. She only knew that the lady had swept down like a whirlwind last night, had paid the rent, redeemed the furniture, provided them with a dinner and breakfast, and ordered them to meet her at Paddington next morning. Leonard had feebly protested, and when the morning came, had suggested that they shouldn’t go. But she, half mesmerized, had obeyed. The lady had told them to, and they must, and their bed-sitting-room had accordingly changed into Paddington, and Paddington into a railway carriage, that shook, and grew hot, and grew cold, and vanished entirely, and reappeared amid torrents of expensive scent. “You have fainted,” said the lady in an awe-struck voice. “Perhaps the air will do you good.” And perhaps it had, for here she was, feeling rather better among a lot of flowers.
“I’m sure I don’t want to intrude,” began Leonard, in answer to Margaret’s question. “But you have been so kind to me in the past in warning me about the Porphyrion that I wondered—why, I wondered whether—”
“Whether we could get him back into the Porphyrion again,” supplied Helen. “Meg, this has been a cheerful business. A bright evening’s work that was on Chelsea Embankment.”
Margaret shook her head and returned to Mr. Bast.
“I don’t understand. You left the Porphyrion because we suggested it was a bad concern, didn’t you?”