"Mr. Bragg," said Owen, with a sudden inspiration, "will you come to Collingwood Terrace and see Mrs. Bransby? You will learn more about them all with your own eyes and ears in ten minutes than I could convey to you in an hour. You shall take them unprepared. If you would look in this evening about their tea-time you would find them all at home; it would be a kind and natural act on your part, and would need no explanation. Do come."
"Well, yes; I will," answered Mr. Bragg. "Perhaps I ought to have done so before. Any way, I'll come; just put down the address."
"Thank you. Shall I write those Spanish letters now?"
"Ah! you'd better. Mr. Barker, there, will give you a seat for the present in his room."
And so they parted.
Mr. Bragg was by no means reassured as to his secretary being in considerable danger from the widow's fascinations. He remarked to himself that Rivers had not said one word explicitly denying any attachment between them, but he felt a new bond of sympathy with Rivers. It was agreeable to meet with such thorough fellow-feeling about Theodore Bransby. Perhaps a mutual dislike is a stronger tie than a mutual friendship, because our hatreds need more justifying than our affections.
By the time Owen's business was transacted, and he had eaten some food at a neighbouring chop-house, it was past two o'clock, and then he set out for Mrs. Dormer-Smith's house on foot. It was a long way off, but it seemed to him more tolerable to walk than to jog along on the top of an omnibus, or to burrow underground in the crowded railway. In his impatient and excited frame of mind the rapid exercise was a relief.
It was barely three o'clock when he reached the house in Kensington. The servant who opened the door murmured something in a low voice, about the ladies not receiving visitors in consequence of a family affliction. Being further interrogated, he believed that Mrs. Dormer-Smith's cousin, Lord Castlecombe's son, was dead.
"Tell Miss Cheffington that I am here," said Owen. "Give her this card, and say I am waiting to see her."
His manner was so peremptory that, after a brief hesitation, the man took the card, and ushered Owen into the dining-room to wait. The room was dimmer than the dim wintry day without need have made it, by reason of the red blinds being partly drawn down, and filling it with a lurid gloom.