When Major White and Cornish were left alone in the private salon of the Hôtel des Indes—when the doctor had come and gone, when the blinds had been decently lowered, and the great man silently laid upon the sofa—they looked at each other without speaking. The grimmest silence is surely that which arises from the thought that of the dead one may only say what is good.
“Would you like me,” said Cornish, “to go across and tell Joan?”
And Major White, whose god was discipline, replied, “She's your cousin. It is for you to say.”
“I shall be glad if you will go,” said Cornish, “and leave me to make the other arrangements. Take her home tomorrow, or tonight if she wants to, and leave us—me—to follow.”
So Major White quitted the Hôtel des Indes, and walked slowly down the length of the Toornoifeld, leaving Cornish alone with Lord Ferriby, whose death made his nephew suddenly a richer man.
The Wades had gone out for a drive in the wood. Major White knew that he would find Joan alone at the hotel. Bad news has a strange trick of clearing the way before it. The major went to the salon on the ground floor overlooking the corner of the Vyverberg. Joan was writing a letter at the window.
“Ah!” she said, turning, pen in hand, “you are soon back. Have you quarrelled?”
White went stolidly across the room towards her. There was a chair by the writing-table, and here he sat down. Joan was looking uneasily into his face. Perhaps she saw more in that immovable countenance than the world was pleased to perceive.
“Your father was taken suddenly ill,” he said, “during the meeting.” Joan half rose from her chair, but the major laid his protecting hand over hers. It was a large, quiet hand—like himself, somewhat suggestive of a buffer. And it may, after all, be no mean rôle to act as a buffer between one woman and the world all one's life.
“You can do nothing,” said White. “Tony is with him.”