Bellows returned.
"Mrs. Scoville is at home, and begs the Misters Van Pycke to bear with her for a few minutes. She is at dinner with a few guests. In the drawing-room there are other guests. You will please to make yourselves at home until she leaves the table. The gentlemen are to smoke in the drawing-room to-night."
"A crowd?" muttered Bosworth. Then his eyes lighted up with sudden relief. "Thank the Lord, I won't have to do it."
"Do what?" demanded his father.
Bosworth's wits were keener. "Go out into the storm without something to warm me up," he equivocated.
"Bellows, who is in the drawing-room?" asked Mr. Van Pycke, eying the door with some curiosity. "They're deuced quiet, whoever they are."
Bellows grew very red in the face and resolutely pressed his lips together. He took Mr. Bosworth's overcoat and hat and laid them carefully on the Italian hall seat before venturing to reply.
"You can't hear them for the wind, sir," he said.
"Bellows, I'm catching my death," shivered Mr. Van Pycke. "I feel it coming. Get me something to drink. My God, look at my shoes! They're sopping wet. Bosworth, don't stand there like a clothing store model! I must have dry shoes and stockings. I can't—"
"A clothing store model?" murmured the footman, strangely perturbed.