CHAPTER XXXIII
GRASP YOUR NETTLE
There is a wide difference between grasping your nettle and rushing in where angels fear to tread.
Several days had gone by and still the anxiously-looked-for summons had not arrived from Alfred Whittaker to his wife. To outward seeming Regina was as calm in the face of this new development of events as if no trace of cloud had ever arisen to come between her and her noble Alfred, but in her heart of hearts she watched every post with an anxiety that was absolutely at fever heat. At night, poor soul, she seemed to have given up sleeping, and Regina was a woman who needed, and had always taken, a fixed amount of time in bed—when I say that I mean of actual, sound, solid sleep. She was one of those persons who, docked of sleep, show the signs of wear and tear with fatal rapidity.
During the greater part of the week she did not go out of the Park, but left word with the sympathetic Margaret, who was perfectly aware that something out of the common was on foot, that in case of a telegram she was to be fetched from such and such a house. Then Maudie came gliding along in her motor brougham, full of sympathy, and, I must confess, at the same time, full of anxiety as to her mother’s condition.
“How is it you are coming to the Park every day now?” Mrs. Whittaker asked on the sixth morning when Maudie arrived about lunch time.
“I was anxious about you, I thought you were not looking very well,” Maudie remarked.
“I am perfectly well.”
“Are you, dear? I fancied you were not quite yourself.”