He sighted the car, ran to it and opened the door. A whimpering bundle in the corner stretched out hands as if to ward him off.
“Oh! oh! oh!” sighed and murmured the bundle.
Jones caught one of the hands, leaned in and kissed it. Then he turned to Venetia who had followed him.
“Get in,” he said.
She got in. He got in after her and closed the door. Venetia put her head out of the window:
“Home,” cried she to the chauffeur.
Jones said nothing till they had cleared the station precincts. Then he began to talk in the darkness, addressing his remarks to both women in a weird sort of monologue.
“All this is nothing,” said he, “you must both forget it. When you hear what I have to tell you to-morrow you won’t bother to remember all this. No one that counts saw that, they were all strangers and making for the cars—I gave the officer a sovereign. What I have to say is this—I must have a meeting of the whole family to-morrow, to-morrow morning. Not about this affair, about something else, something entirely to do with me. I have been trying to explain all day—tried to write it out but couldn’t. I have to tell you something that will simply knock you all out of time.”
Suddenly the sniffing bundle in the corner became articulate.
“I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t want to do it—I hate him—oh, Ju-Ju, if you had not treated me so last night, I would never have done it, never, never, never.”