"I don't know what to say—I—to thank——"
"Well, don't," said Duncombe. "I hate being thanked. Besides, there's no call for it."
The gong sounded.
This was an adventurous day for Henry; he discovered in the first place that Duncombe would not himself be in to luncheon, and he descended the cold stone stairs with the anticipatory shiver that he always felt when his master deserted him. Lady Bell-Hall neither liked nor trusted him, and showed her disapproval by showering little glances upon him, with looks of the kind that anxious hostesses bestow upon nervous parlour-maids when the potatoes are going the wrong way round or the sherry has been forgotten. Henry knew what these glances said. They said: "Oh, young man, I cannot conceive why my brother has chosen you for his secretary. You are entirely unsuited for a secretary. You are rash, ignorant, bad-mannered and impetuous. If there is one thing in life that I detest it is having some one near me whose words and actions are for ever uncertain and not to be calculated beforehand. I am never certain of you from one minute to another. I do wish you would go away and take a post elsewhere."
Because Henry knew that Lady Bell-Hall was thinking this of him he was always in her presence twice as awkward as he need have been, spilt his soup, crumbled his bread and made strange sudden noises that were by himself entirely unexpected. To-day, however, he was spared his worst trouble, Mr. Light-Johnson. The only guests were Tom Duncombe and a certain Lady Alicia Penrose, who exercised over Lady Bell-Hall exactly the fascinated influence that a boa-constrictor has for a rabbit. Alicia Penrose certainly resembled a boa-constrictor, being tall, swollen and writhing, bound, moreover, so tightly about with brilliant clothing fitting her like a sheath that it was always a miracle to Henry that she could move at all. She must have been a lady of some fifty summers, but her skirts were very short, coming only just below her knees. She was a jolly and hearty woman, living entirely for Bridge and food, and not pretending to do otherwise. Henry could not understand why she should come so often to luncheon as she did. He supposed that she enjoyed startling Lady Bell-Hall with peeps into her pleasure-loving life, not that in her chatter she ever paused to listen to her hostess's terrified little "Really, Alicia!" or "You can't mean it, Alicia!" or "I never heard such a thing—never!"
After a while Henry arrived nearer the truth when he supposed that she came in order to obtain a free meal, she being in a state of chronic poverty and living in a small series of attics over a mews.
She was, it seemed, related to every person of importance and alluded to them all in a series of little nicknames that fell like meteors about table. "Podgy," "Old Cuddles," "Dusty Parker," "Fifi Bones," "Larry," "Bronx," "Traddles"—these were her familiar friends. When she was alone with Henry, Duncombe and his sister she was comparatively quiet, paying eager attention to her food (which was not very good) and sometimes including Henry in the conversation. But the presence of an outsider excited her terribly. She was, outwardly at any rate, as warmly excited about the domestic and political situation as was Lady Bell-Hall, but it did not seem to Henry that it went very deep. So long as her Bridge was uninterfered with everything else might go. She talked in short staccato sentences like a female Mr. Tingle.
To-day she was stirred by Tom Duncombe, not that she did not know him well enough, he being very much more in her set than were either his brother or sister. Henry had not liked Tom Duncombe from the first and to-day he positively loathed him. This was for a very simple human reason, namely, that he talked as though he, Henry, did not exist, looking over his head, and once, when Henry volunteered a comment on the weather, not answering him at all.
And then when the meal was nearly over Henry most unfortunately fell yet again into Lady Bell-Hall's bad graces.