“That’s so, sir; and as if, seeing what a stew you’re in over your losses, it hadn’t took a bit of effect upon you.”
“No, no,” said the agent, slowly. “I don’t feel as if I had had more than a glass.”
“And all the time, sir, as the conductors say, you’re ‘full up’; and if you put any more on it you’ll soon find it out, and come on with a fit of the horrors, same as some poor beggars have before there’s an inquest.”
The agent shuddered, and unconsciously began to play with the extinguisher of the plated candlestick, lifting it off the cone upon which it rested, putting it back, and ending by lifting it off quickly, and, as if to illustrate the groom’s meaning, putting out the light.
“Pst! Hark! What’s that?” cried Jane, excitedly. “Here they are!”
Trimmer started violently. “Oh,” he cried, “I can’t meet anybody now. Mark—Jane—don’t say that I have been out I shall not—tell her ladyship—a word.”
“Thank ye for nothing,” said Mark, mockingly, as the door closed upon the departing agent. “How the dickens did he do that?” he added, for a flower-pot in the conservatory fell with a crash upon the encaustic tiled floor, and Jane uttered a gasp.
But the next instant the front door-bell was rung violently.
“Come with me, Mark,” whispered the girl, and they both hurried into the hall, the groom to open the door, and Jane to busy herself with trembling hands striking matches to light a couple of the chamber candlesticks standing ready upon the slab.