CHAPTER XI
SWORDS DRAWN
David, meantime, also by cab, was off to Porchester Gardens, a certain hurry and fluster now in his usually self-possessed bosom. He looked at his face in the cab-mirror, and adjusted his tie. A young man who acts in that way betrays a symptom of heart-disease. At 60A he sent up his card.
Violet knew from Dibbin the name of David Harcourt, but when she read it she seemed startled, and turned a little pale. “Show him up,” she said, in a flurry.
“You will excuse my calling,” explained David, without shaking hands, “though we have met before—you remember?”
She inclined her head a little, standing, as it were, shrunk from him, some way off.
“But my visit has to do with a small matter which admits of no delay.”
“My mother—” she began.
“Is out, I know,” said he, “but as the affair is urgent, I am here. You know that I am the tenant of No. 7, Eddystone Mansions, and you know also, that, without seeking it, I have some knowledge of your history. I wish to ask whether, without troubling your mind with a lot of details, you care to authorize me to spend at once, in your interests, a sum of one hundred pounds.”
She scrutinized him with a certain furtiveness, weighing him.