At the same hour Mrs. Luttrell sat before the fire in the great empty drawing-room, from which the guests had just departed. Mrs. Luttrell was burning with curiosity to know what had become of Baskerville and Anne Clavering when they disappeared so mysteriously—for Baskerville had not returned, either. The fact is, while Anne was lost in a soft ecstasy, Baskerville, smoking furiously at a big black cigar, was walking aimlessly about the streets, his heart beating high. He looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock, and it occurred to him that it was time to go back to Mrs. Luttrell and make provision for future meetings with Anne Clavering and, possibly, their marriage from Mrs. Luttrell’s house, if circumstances should follow as he expected.
When he walked in, Mrs. Luttrell’s greeting was, “Where’s Anne Clavering?”
“Safe at home, I trust,” replied Baskerville, throwing the end of his cigar into the fire.
“And what became of you, pray, when you two went prancing off, and never came back?”
“I took Miss Clavering into the morning-room.”
“You did, eh?”
“I did.”
“And what happened in the morning-room?”
“I decline to state, except that Miss Clavering and I are to be married—perhaps in this house. Senator Clavering, you know, and I are at feud, and the coming revelations about him make it very likely that he won’t have a house here very long”—Baskerville had in mind Clavering’s divorce—“and our meetings, Miss Clavering’s and mine, are to take place under your roof, with yourself to play gooseberry. Even if you are due at the biggest dinner going at the house of the smartest of the smart and the newest of the new, you shall stay here, if we have to chain you up.”
“Upon my word!”