Henry put his arms round Philip’s neck.
“They’ve turned the roa’ upside down,” he whispered confidentially. “We mustn’t lose each other.”
They entered the dark hall. Philip with one arm round Henry’s waist. Henry sat on the lowest step of the stairs.
“I’ll shtay here to-night,” he said. “It’s shafer,” and was instantly asleep. Philip lifted him, then with Henry’s boots tapping the stairs at each step, they moved upwards. Henry was heavy, and at the top Philip had to pause for breath. Suddenly the boy slipped from his arms and fell with a crash. The whole house re-echoed. Philip’s heart stopped beating, and his only thought was, “Now I’m done. They’ll all be here in a moment. They’ll drive me away. Katherine will never speak to me again.” A silence followed abysmally deep, only broken by some strange snore that came from the heart of the house (as though it were the house that was snoring) and the ticking of two clocks that, in their race against one another, whirred and chuckled.
Philip picked Henry up again and proceeded. He found the room, pushed open the door, closed it and switched on the light. He then undressed Henry, folding the clothes carefully, put upon him his pyjamas, laid him in bed and tucked him up. Henry, his eyes closed as though by death, snored heavily....
Philip turned the light out, crept into the passage, listened, stole downstairs, let himself into the Square, where he stood for a moment, in the cold night air, the only living thing in a sleeping world, then hastened away.
“Thank Heaven,” he thought, “we’ve escaped.” He had not escaped. Aunt Aggie, a fantastic figure in a long blue dressing-gown, roused by Henry’s fall, had watched, from her bedroom door, the whole affair. She waited until she had heard the hall-door close, then stole down and locked it, stole up again and disappeared silently into her room.
When Henry woke in the morning his headache was very different from any headache that he had ever endured before. His first thought was that he could never possibly get up, but would lie there all day. His second that, whatever he did, he must rouse suspicion in no one, his third that he really had been terribly drunk last night, and remembered nothing after his second whisky at the Carlton, his fourth that someone must have put him to bed last night, because his clothes were folded carefully, whereas it was his own custom always to fling them about the room. At this moment Rocket (who always took upon himself the rousing of Henry) entered with hot water.
“Time to get up, sir,” he said. “Breakfast-bell in twenty minutes. Bath quite ready.”