Captain Douglas left Sir Peter and Woodenhouse to it.
He emerged on the landing and selected one of the lighted candlesticks upon the table. “Lord!” he whispered. He grimaced in soliloquy and then perceived the Lord Chancellor regarding him with suspicion and disfavour from the ascending staircase. He attempted ease. For the first time since the train incident he addressed Lord Moggeridge.
“I gather, my lord,—don’t believe in ghosts?” he said.
“No, Sir,” said the Lord Chancellor, “I don’t.”
“They won’t trouble me to-night.”
“They won’t trouble any of us.”
“Fine old house anyhow,” said Captain Douglas.
The Lord Chancellor disdained to reply. He went on his way upstairs.
§ 4
When the Lord Chancellor sat down before the thoughtful fire in the fine old panelled room assigned to him he perceived that he was too disturbed to sleep. This was going to be an infernal week-end. The worst week-end he had ever had. Mrs. Rampound Pilby maddened him; Timbre, who was a Pragmatist—which stands in the same relation to a Hegelian that a small dog does to a large cat—exasperated him; he loathed Laxton, detested Rampound Pilby and feared—as far as he was capable of fearing anything—Captain Douglas. There was no refuge, no soul in the house to whom he could turn for consolation and protection from these others. Slinker Bond could talk only of the affairs of the party, and the Lord Chancellor, being Lord Chancellor, had long since lost any interest in the affairs of the party; Woodenhouse could talk of nothing. The women were astonishingly negligible. There were practically no pretty women. There ought always to be pretty young women for a Lord Chancellor, pretty young women who can at least seem to listen....