“I hope so.”
“If you will allow me,” Grimshaw went on, “I will go to my patient.”
He bowed and left the kitchen.
Lady Selina swept to the door. John opened it for her. Without a word, she passed into the hot sunshine.
John came back to Agatha, dropping this ointment upon her lacerated tissues:
“Grimshaw’s a damned timeserver, Aggie, like the rest of ’em.”
“I couldn’t have believed it,” she faltered. “I—I thought he was different.”
Suddenly, from the ingle-nook came a burst of vivid flame. Nick had set his fool’s-cap afire. His shrill, uncanny laugh rang through the kitchen.
“Damn the boy,” exclaimed the startled John. Nick confronted him with his imbecile grin.
“I be saft along o’ my lady,” he piped. “Father says so; yas, I be saft along o’ she.”