"You're up here to-night," he went on deliberately, "because I made you come up, and because I wasn't going to have you go home, after eating nothing all day, to a house where every one's in bed, and cry yourself to sleep or lie awake starving and self-reproachful. You won't be so hard on yourself after eating and drinking something. Hello!"
There was a stir and tinkle of glass and china from the inner room. Bryan threw the door open.
"Bring it in here, Becket," he said.
Two servants entered, carrying a tray. Quickly as a conjuror the elder of the two cleared the low table, spread a fringed linen cloth and laid out supper. There was soup in brown silver-covered bowls, and something in a tureen with a white tongue of flame licking the bottom, and an epergne of fruit topped with a big pine and a phalanx of thin glasses. The footman put a pail on the ground full of cracked ice, out of which three long bottle-necks were sticking. He began to cut the cork of one of them loose.
"Anybody call while I was out, Becket?"
"Madame called about nine, Sir Bryan."
"Again?" he said, in a surprised voice.
"Yes, Sir Bryan."
"Did she leave any message?"
"She said you would probably hear from her to-night, Sir Bryan."