“Never you mind, my lady, never you mind. You send for old Crappen.”
She waited for a moment. “Is that all you want me to do?”
“I’m going to make it all right about those Hostels. Don’t you fear. You and your Hostels! You shan’t touch those hostels ever again. Ever. Mrs. Pembrose go! Why! You ain’t worthy to touch the heel of her shoe! Mrs. Pembrose!”
He gathered together all his forces and suddenly expelled with rousing force the word he had already applied to her on the day of the intercepted letter.
He found it seemed great satisfaction in the sound and taste of it. He repeated it thrice. “Zut,” cried the doctor, “Sssh!”
Then Sir Isaac intimated his sense that calm was imperative. “You send for Crappen,” he said with a quiet earnestness.
She had become now so used to terms of infamy during the last year or so, so accustomed to forgive them as part of his suffering, that she seemed not to hear the insult.
“Do you want him at once?” she asked. “Shall I telegraph?”
“Want him at once!” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Yes, you fool—yes. Telegraph. (Phew.) Telegraph.... I mustn’t get angry, you know. You—telegraph.”
He became suddenly still. But his eyes were active with hate.