“I tell you I can prove it, I can prove it!” he was saying to George as they two came in first; his face was flushed and his gait unsteady, and his manner more dictatorial than ever.
“How can you prove it?” asked George, who might have been drinking as much, but who showed it less.
“By a paper I’ve got somewhere. Annie,” said he to his wife, scarcely turning toward where she sat at the piano, “where is that American paper the colonel gave me, about the trotting-matches?”
“I packed it with your papers. I can find it if you want it.”
“Yes, yes, I want it. Then I’ll show you I was right,” said he, triumphantly, to his brother. Annie had risen, and was crossing the room to the door. George interposed.
“No, no, not to-night. Don’t you see she is tired? You can’t ask her to ransack your portmanteau to-night for a paper of no importance. It will do to-morrow.”
“No, it won’t do to-morrow,” said Harry, who was not in a state to brook contradiction. “I say I will prove it to you now, to-night. It is of importance, of great importance, very important! You said I was wrong; I say I’m right, and I’ll prove it.”
Before the end of this speech, the last words of which were spoken with halting gravity, Annie had left the room, gently insisting upon passing George, who would still have tried to prevent her going. Harry, luckily, did not see his brother’s good-natured attempt to save his tired little wife a tedious search for an old newspaper. She went up to their room; it was Harry’s old room, with a second little bed put up in it. His portmanteau had been unstrapped. She turned out the gas in trying to turn it up; so she opened the door and dragged the portmanteau into the corridor, under the burner outside.
Fatigue had dulled her faculties, and it was a long time before she found what she wanted. She was still searching when she heard heavy footsteps behind her, and looking round from where she was on her knees, she saw Wilfred leaning against the friendly wall.
“Let me help you,” said he; and he knelt down beside her, not without difficulty.