“Champagne for a child like ’im,” she cried, “I never ’eard of such a thing. Do you want to make ’im a drunkard, Miss Wynward? No! thank you, there ’ave been no ’ard drinkers in our family, and ’e shan’t begin it! ’Is father was one of the soberest men alive! ’E never took anything stronger than toast and water all the time I knew ’im.”
“Of course not, your ladyship,” stammered Miss Wynward, who seemed in abject fear of her employer, “I only thought as Bobby seems so very tired, that a little stimulant——”
“Then let ’im go to bed,” replied Madame Gobelli. “Bed is the proper place for boys when they’re tired! Come, Sir, off to bed with you, at once, and don’t let me ’ear anything more of you till to-morrow morning!”
“But mayn’t I have some supper?” pleaded Bobby.
“Not a bit of it!” reiterated the Baroness, “if you’re so done up that you require champagne, your stomach can’t be in a fit state to digest beef and bread! Be off at once, I say, or you’ll get a taste of my stick.”
“But, my lady—” said Miss Wynward, entreatingly.
“It’s not a bit of good, Miss Wynward, I know more about boys’ insides than you do. Sleep’s the thing for Bobby. Now, no more nonsense, I say—”
But Bobby, after one long look at Harriet Brandt, had already quitted the room. This episode had the effect of destroying Miss Wynward’s appetite. She sat gazing at her plate for a few minutes, and then with some murmured excuse of its being late, she rose and disappeared. The Baroness was some time over her meal, and Harriet had an opportunity to examine the apartment they sat in, as well as the dim light allowed her to do. The walls were covered with oil paintings and good ones, as she could see at a glance, whilst at the further end, where narrow shelves were fixed from the floor to the ceiling, was displayed the famous dinner service of Sèvres, for which the Baroness was said to have bartered the two thousand lease of her house.
Harriet glanced from the pictures and the china upon the walls to the steak and bread and cheese upon the table, and marvelled at the incongruity of the whole establishment. Madame Gobelli who, whilst at the Lion d’Or, had appeared to think nothing good enough for her, was now devouring fried steak and onions, as if they had been the daintiest of fare. But the champagne made amends, on that night at least, for the solids which accompanied it, and the girl was quite ready to believe that the poverty of the table was only due to the fact that they had arrived at the Red House unexpectedly. As they reached the upper corridor, her host and hostess parted with her, with much effusion, and passing into their own room, shut the door and locked it noisily. As Harriet gained hers, she saw the door opposite partly unclose to display poor Bobby standing there to see her once again.
He was clothed only in his long night-shirt, and looked like a lanky ghost, but he was too childish in mind to think for one moment that his garb was not a suitable one for a lover to accost his mistress in. She heard him whisper her name as she turned the handle of her own door.