Roger informed her of the reprehensible and entirely un-British manner in which luggage was arranged for at that metropolis, and of the price of the cabs and the system of pourboires, and how the housemaid at the hotel had been a man. Some of these details of intimate Parisian life had already reached even Janey, but she listened to them with unflagging interest. Do not antiquaries tell us that the extra rib out of which Eve was fashioned was in shape not unlike an ear trumpet? Janey was a daughter of Eve. She listened.
Presently the servants withdrew, and he leaned back in his chair and looked at her.
"It was no go," he said.
"You mean Dick was worse?"
"Yes. No. I don't know how he was. He looked to me just the same, staring straight in front of him with goggling eyes. Lady Jane said he knew me, but I didn't see that he did. I said, 'Holloa, Dick,' and he just gaped. She said he knew quite well all about the business, and that she had explained it to him. And the doctor was there, willing to witness anything: awful dapper little chap, called me Chair Mussieur and held me by the arm, and tried to persuade me, but——" Roger shook his head and thrust out his under lip.
"You were right, Roger," said Janey sadly; "but poor mother will be dreadfully angry. And how are you to go on without the power of attorney, if he's not in a fit state to grant it?"
But Roger was not listening.
"I often used to wonder how Aunt Louisa got Dick to sign before about the sale of the salt marshes—that time when she went to Paris herself—on purpose. But,"—he became darkly red,—"hang it all, Janey, I see now how it was done."
"She shouldn't have sent me," he said, getting up abruptly. "Not the kind for the job. I suppose I had better go up and see her. Expect I shall catch it."