“When will he be back?”
“On Monday, sir. We have a whole day every second week. Is there anything I can get you, sir?”
Gordon shook his head. He only wanted his bag and his lost respectability. Removing his overcoat, he looked at himself in the glass.
“That isn’t me,” he said brokenly.
His appearance had changed, even in the short space of time elapsing between this and his last inspection.
The type was hideously familiar. He had seen it once in a vulgar film where everybody chased everybody else. He remembered that the heroine wore white stockings and black boots.
There were two alternatives. He might remain a prisoner in that room until Balding returned from his holiday; he could go home, get into the house unobserved and change. He had many black-tailed coats, batteries of silk hats, forests of quiet, grey-striped trousers. This idea was more attractive. Diana would lunch at one o’clock; the dining-room was across the hall from The Study. It would be a simple matter to slip upstairs, change and come down to meet the astonished eyes of Diana. How surprised she would be, and how amusing and unbending he would be!
“Didn’t expect to see me, eh? Well, the fact is, I had an important cablegram—just as I was getting into the train. My sidewhiskers? Yes, I took them off as a little surprise for you. Rather an improvement, don’t you think?”
His heart warmed to the plan, and there was a glow in the thought that the desire of the morning, that he should sleep in his own bed that night, would be gratified. And there was the companionship of Diana, hitherto an unconsidered attraction. Diana grew on him: he admitted this to himself. If Heloise did go after him to Ostend, that would be unfortunate. He hated the idea of giving her a journey for nothing. But she would not leave for a day or two, and he would find means of communicating with her....
He shuddered; for at the back of the vision of Heloise, stood the large, brutal husband who was mad, mad.