“I am, for one then,” Holman muttered. “And I’ve been here twenty years.”
“Unnecessarily afraid. I think you’ll find that I’m perfectly capable of dealing with the fellow when he comes—and he’ll come all right—oh, yes! he’ll come.”
“I wonder,” Holman said.
“I’m sure I hope so,” Tom Carruthers said heartily.
Holman devoutly hoped not, but he did not say it.
“He’ll come,” Gregory repeated didactically, almost truculently; “he’ll come, as full of oil as a pound of butter. What the devil!” he added, with a displeased change of voice, as silk skirts and high-heeled shoes sounded in the hall. “I told you not to leave the hotel,” he complained, with affection and dismay mingled in his voice, as his wife and daughter came through the door.
“Of course you did, poor old dear,” Hilda told him soothingly, seating herself on the corner of his desk and patting him encouragingly on his shoulder. “But Mother can’t rest. How can she? And if she isn’t scouring the island—she must know every inch of it by now—she is hunting on the mainland with Ah Wong.”
“Oh! I know, I know,” Florence Gregory said wearily, subsiding indifferently into the chair Holman placed for her.
“You’ll wear yourself out,” her husband said roughly, but not unkindly.
The mother smiled, contemptuous of the fatigue from which she was wan and trembling. “It’s no use saying anything to me. I can’t rest. Have you heard anything? That’s all I’ve come for.”