"I've got a taxi waiting," he went on, "so I'd better not stay any more. Of all forms of wasting money, letting a taxi tick up while it's standing still is the silliest."
And he was gone.
Ben's lips shaped themselves to whistle, but no sound came. "It's lucky for us that mother had some nice feelings," she permitted herself to think.
She called Jan.
"I've got to go down to the country," she said, "and I may stay the night. Tell Miss Marquand to open everything and act as if she were me."
"No one could do that," said the loyal Jan.
"Well, as nearly as possible then," said Ben. "This is my address if you want anything special," and she hurried off.
At the station she sent a telegram to Merrill to announce her imminence, and then she settled down in the compartment to consider the situation.
Poor old Egbert, she thought. What an arid life! To a large extent wasted, with the kind of waste that is going on on all sides. What did he marry for? He thought he was in love, or, at any rate, in need of Merrill. But he wasn't. He no sooner acquired her than he forgot her; she became furniture; all he wanted was himself and the opportunity to get on with his foolish book, which didn't matter to anyone. Everything was sacrificed to that; his blood turned to ink; he ceased to be interested in actual present-day life; his sympathy changed to a pedantic curiosity; he gave what was meant for his fellow-creatures to a Biblical tribe that had been dead for thousands of years.
And how many other men were like him? They didn't all write about the Hittites, but they had their absorbing Hittites all the same, whether business Hittites or play Hittites, and so their altar promises became scraps of paper and the precious hours slipped away. What a muddle! What a muddle!