She looked at me calmly. "It is Sir Richard Pakenham," said she. "This is his usual hour. I will send him away. Go now—quick!"
I rapidly passed behind the screening curtains into the hall, even as I heard a heavy foot stumbling at the threshold and a somewhat husky voice offer some sort of salutation.
CHAPTER XXXII
PAKENHAM'S PRICE
The happiest women, like nations, have no history.
—George Eliot.
The apartment into which I hurriedly stepped I found to be a long and narrow hall, heavily draped. A door or so made off on the right-hand side, and a closed door also appeared at the farther end; but none invited me to enter, and I did not care to intrude. This situation did not please me, because I must perforce hear all that went on in the rooms which I had just left. I heard the thick voice of a man, apparently none the better for wine.
"My dear," it began, "I—" Some gesture must have warned him.
"God bless my soul!" he began again. "Who is here, then? What is wrong?"
"My father is here to-day," I heard her clear voice answer, "and, as you suggest, it might perhaps be better—"