He was walking up and down his wife's drawing-room in a tremendous state of excitement, while she smiled at him from the sofa.
"It is wonderful, coming just now, too, when I had made up my mind that we couldn't keep afloat here much longer, and had resolved to give up this house at the September quarter and retire into a dingier part of the town. Once it is known that I am Lady Anne Hamilton's medical man the snobs of the neighbourhood will all be sending for me."
"Poor Dr. Pownall!" said Mrs. Carruthers, laughing softly.
"Oh, Pownall is all right. They say he's immensely wealthy. He can retire now and enjoy his money. If the public did not go back on him he'd be a dead man in five or six years. He does the work of twenty men. I pity the others, the poor devils who are waiting on fortune as I have waited."
"There is no fear of Lady Anne disappointing you?" she asked, in a hesitating voice. She did not like to seem to throw cold water on his joyful mood.
"There is no fear," he answered, standing midway of the room with its three large windows. "She is coming to see you, Milly. If I have failed in anything you will succeed. You will see me at the top of the tree yet. You will have cause to be proud of me."
"I am always proud of you. Kit," she said, in a low, impassioned voice.
Meanwhile, Lady Anne herself had made a pilgrimage to Wistaria Terrace in the hour preceding the luncheon hour. She had left Mary in a deep chair in the big drawing-room. Outside were the boughs of trees. From the windows you could surprise the secrets of the birds if you would. The room was very spacious, with chairs and sofas round the walls, a great mirror at either end, a paper on its walls which pretended to be panels wreathed in roses. The ceiling had a gay picture of gods and goddesses reclining in a flowery mead. The mantelpiece was Carrara marble, curiously inlaid with coloured wreaths. There was a fire in the brass grate, although it was summer weather. The proximity of the trees and the natural climate of the place meant damp. The fire sparkled in the brass dogs and the brass jambs of the fireplace. The skin of a tiger stretched itself along the floor. The terrible teeth grinned almost at Mary's feet.
The child was sick and faint from the pain of having her arm set. She lay in the deep sofa, covered with red damask, amid a bewildering softness of cushions and rugs, and wondered what Lady Anne was saying to Mamie. Mamie was Mrs. Gray. From the first Mary had not called her Mother. Her name was Matilda, and Mamie was a sort of compromise.
Meanwhile, Lady Anne had gone out by her garden, through the stable, and into the lane at the back. There was a little door open in the opposite wall; beyond it was a shabby trellis with scarlet-runners clambering upon it.