They were passionate, idealistic in parts, drivelling. He called her his “Ickle teeny weeny treasure.” Baby language—Jones almost blushed as he read.
“He sure was moulting,” said he, as he dropped letter after letter on the floor. “And he paid eight thousand to hold these things back—well, I don’t know, maybe I’d have done the same myself. I can’t fancy seeing myself in the Philadelphia Ledger with this stuff tacked on to the end of my name.”
He collected the incriminating documents, placed them in the envelope, and came downstairs with it in his hand.
Breakfast was an almost exact replica of the meal of yesterday; the pile of letters brought in by Church was rather smaller, however.
These letters were a new difficulty, they would all have to be answered, the ones of yesterday, and the ones of to-day.
He would have to secure the services of a typist and a typewriter: that could be arranged later on. He placed them aside and opened a newspaper. He was accustomed enough now to his situation to be able to take an interest in the news of the day. At any moment his environment might split to admit of a new Voles or Spicer, or perhaps some more dangerous spectre engendered from the dubious past of Rochester; but he scarcely thought of this, he had gone beyond fear, he was up to the neck in the business.
He glanced at the news of the day, reading as he ate. Then he pushed the paper aside. The thought had just occurred to him that Rochester had paid that eight thousand not to shield a woman’s name but to shield his own. To prevent that gibberish being read out against him in court.
This thought dimmed what had seemed a brighter side of Rochester, that obscure thing which Jones was condemned to unveil little by little and bit by bit. He pushed his plate away, and at this moment Mr. Church entered the breakfast room.
He came to the table and, speaking in half lowered voice said:
“Lady Plinlimon to see you, your Lordship.”