§ 5
A happy accident relieved Mr. Gabbitas from the embarrassment of that challenge, and carried me another step along my course of personal disaster.
It came on the heels of my question in the form of a clatter of horses without, and the gride and cessation of wheels. I glimpsed a straw-hatted coachman and a pair of grays. It seemed an incredibly magnificent carriage for Clayton.
“Eh!” said the Rev. Gabbitas, going to the window. “Why, it’s old Mrs. Verrall! It’s old Mrs. Verrall. Really! What can she want with me?”
He turned to me, and the flush of controversy had passed and his face shone like the sun. It was not every day, I perceived, that Mrs. Verrall came to see him.
“I get so many interruptions,” he said, almost grinning. “You must excuse me a minute! Then—then I’ll tell you about that fellow. But don’t go. I pray you don’t go. I can assure you. . . . most interesting.”
He went out of the room waving vague prohibitory gestures.
“I must go,” I cried after him.
“No, no, no!” in the passage. “I’ve got your answer,” I think it was he added, and “quite mistaken;” and I saw him running down the steps to talk to the old lady.
I swore. I made three steps to the window, and this brought me within a yard of that accursed drawer.