PART IV
CHAPTER I "THE ROOST"
Mr Bevan, since his visit to Highgate, dreamed often at nights of monstrous asparagus beds, and his friends and acquaintances noticed that he seemed distrait.
The fact was the mind of this orderly and precise individual had received a shock; his world of thought had tilted somewhat, owing to a slight shifting of the poles, and regions hitherto in darkness were touched with sun.
Go where he would a voice pursued him, turn where he would, a face. Wild impulses to jump into a cab and drive to "The Laurels," Highgate, as swiftly as cab could take him were subdued and conquered. Perhaps it would be happier for some of us if we used less reason in steering our way through life. Impulsive people are often sneered at, yet, I dare say that an impulse acted upon will as often make a man's life as mar it.
Mr Bevan was not an impulsive man. It was not for some days after his visit to "The Laurels" that he carried out his determination to stop the action once for all. He did not return to "The Laurels." He was engaged and a man of honour, and as such he determined to fly from temptation. Accordingly one bright morning he despatched a wire intimating his arrival by the 3.50 at Ditchingham, having sent which he flung himself into a hansom and drove to Charing Cross, followed by another hansom containing Strutt, two portmanteaux, a hunting kit-bag and a bundle of fishing-rods. An extraordinary accident happened to the train he travelled by; it arrived at Paddock Wood only three minutes late, making up for this deficiency, however, by crawling into Ditchingham at 4.10.
On the Ditchingham platform stood two girls. One tall, pale, and decidedly good-looking despite the pince-nez she wore; the other short and rather stout, and rather pretty.
The tall girl was Miss Pursehouse; the short was Lulu Morgan, Miss Pursehouse's companion, an American.