“Give me anything,” she says, “anything. What does it matter? He’ll be here any minute now. The old dressing-gown, or a shirt and skirt. Whichever is quickest. What a slowcoach you’re getting!”
“Slowcoach! She called me a slowcoach, and from first to last it hadn’t been twenty minutes.”
Margaret, sufficiently dressed, but without having breakfasted, very pale and impatient, was at the window of the music room when Peter came up the gravel path in his noisy motor, flung in the clutch with a grating sound, pulled the machine to a standstill. There was no ceremony about showing him up. He was in the room before she had collected herself. He, too, was pale, his chin unshaved, his eyes a little wild; looking as if he, also, had not slept.
“You’ve heard what happened?” he began, abruptly.... “No, of course you haven’t, how could you? What a fool I am! There’s been a hell of a hullabaloo. That’s why I telephoned, rushed up. You know that she-cat came down here?” He had difficulty in explaining his errand.
“Yes. I saw her, she waited for you at the hotel. Go on, what next?”
“I didn’t get back until after nine o’clock. And then I found her waiting for me. The servants did not know what to make of her; they told me they couldn’t understand what she said, so I suppose she talked Christian Science. Fortunately I’d got the cheque with me. I had not been able to change it, the London banks were all closed. She took it like a bird. Not without some of the jargon and hope that I’d mend my ways, give up prescribing drugs. You know the sort of thing. I thought I’d got through, that it was all over. The cheque was dated Saturday, she would be able to cash it first thing Monday morning. It was as good as money directly the banks opened. I never dreamt of them meeting.”
“Who?” asked Margaret, with pale lips. She knew well enough, although she asked and waited for an answer.
“She and Gabriel Stanton. It seems she was too late for the last train and had to put up at the hotel....”
“At the King’s Arms?”
“Yes. He met her there, or rather she forced herself on him. God knows what she had in her mind. Pure mischief, I suspect, though of course it may have been propaganda. It seems he came in about ten o’clock and went on to the terrace to smoke or to look at the sea. She followed him there, tackled him about his sister or his soul.”