"Yes," Lechmere said crisply. "You can do a great deal for me, and you need ask no questions for the present, for I have no time to reply to them. Ask Maxgregor if he has any of his fishing tackle here. If he has, ask him to let me have a long length of salmon line on a reel. The sooner I have it the better I shall be pleased."
"In the bottom drawer of my writing table," Maxgregor called out. "What are you up to now?"
CHAPTER XXX
HER FRIEND, THE QUEEN
Jessie sat listening in a vague way to a girl who sat chatting by her side. She had not the least idea what the girl was saying, nor, indeed, had she any clue to the identity of the speaker. The talk was a little confidential, and was evidently the continuation of some confidence began at another time. Jessie nodded and smiled, and by instinct looked sympathetic at the right moment.
"And what would you say to Reggie under the circumstances?" the girl asked. "It isn't as if George had behaved badly, because he really hasn't, you know. Vera, you are not listening."
Jessie laughed in a dreamy kind of way. The whole thing was getting horribly on her nerves now. She felt how utterly impossible it would be to keep up much longer. She was utterly tired out; she longed for something to inspire her flagging strength. She began to understand why men drink in certain circumstances. But she was just equal to the occasion.
"I am dead tired, I am half asleep," she said. "And my head is racking. Ask me again, my dear, when I am capable of a coherent thought or two. And as to Reggie, why, what can you do better than trust your own woman's instinct. Have I not always thought that——"