Gavin stretched out his hand and tried to switch on the electric light. A clumsy effort in an unfamiliar room found him passing his fingers idly over a wainscoted wall; and when he felt for the reading lamp by his bedside, he overturned it with his elbow and could not replace the plug which his maladroitness had detached. Alarmed now as he never believed that any situation could alarm him, he sprang from his bed and felt with both hands extended for the figure which the room concealed. Hither, thither, with an oath upon his clumsiness, he sought the unknown, his hands touching unfamiliar objects, the darkness seeming almost to mock him. That the unknown man was still in the room he had no doubt whatever; for the interludes repeated the sound of quick breathing and he heard a garment rustling just as he had heard it in his sleep. Once, indeed, he felt the warm breath upon his cheek and struck savagely at an enemy of sounds, who still uttered no word nor would acknowledge his presence. Had he been calmer, he might have known that the darkness also deceived the intruder and that he too was at a loss to escape; but this Gavin did not discover until the door opened suddenly and a flash of light from the corridor struck across the room like a sunbeam suddenly admitted by a lifted blind. Then he saw the face of the escaping man for the second time and stood amazed at its familiarity.
"The old gypsy I saw in the park yesterday walking with the Earl," he said, astounded, and then, "What in the devil's name is he doing here?"
That should not have been a difficult question to answer, and Gavin instantly determined to make no mention of it until the morning. The fellow was probably a thief, who had the run of the house and had taken advantage of its master's forbearance. It would be sufficient to name the circumstance at the breakfast table and to leave the rest to the Earl, who could act in the matter as he pleased. None the less, Gavin found his nerves much shaken and sleep for the remainder of the night was out of the question. Switching on every lamp in his room, and locking and bolting the heavy door, he sat by the open window and asked himself into what house of mysteries he had stumbled and what secrets it was about to reveal to him. But chiefly he asked where he had met the Lady Evelyn before ... and memory befriending him suddenly, as memory will at a crisis, he exclaimed aloud:
"The Carlton Theatre—Haddon Hall—Etta Romney, by all that's amazing!"
Was the thought also a chimera of the night? He knew not what to think. The dawn found him still at his window debating it.
CHAPTER XVIII
A DUEL OVER THE TEA-CUPS
Gavin had always been an early riser and one who flouted the modern idea that the world should be aired before men went abroad. Faithful to his habit, the following morning found him riding in the park a little after seven o'clock; and not until the sweet cold air of the highlands had recompensed him for a waking night did he return to the Hall and the generous breakfast table there spread for him. A professed disciple of the simple life, Gavin confessed that the Earl's lavish hospitalities were altogether too much for his philosophy; and he ate and drank with the hearty relish of one to whom these unending luxuries were both a revelation in the art of living and a satire upon the habits of the rich.
What vast quantities of food were heaped upon that priceless sideboard—in dishes of shining silver, each warmed by the clear flame of a silver lamp beneath. Lift a lid of one of those granaries and there you would espy an omelet which none but a man from Paris could cook. Peep into another and there are eggs prepared so cunningly that they would melt the heart of Master Fastidity himself. Fish and fowl and flesh, great red joints upon the buffet, exquisite peaches from the hothouses, bunches of grapes that would have taken prizes in any show—how ironical to remember the class of man who usually sat to such a table, his ennui, his distaste, and the abstinence cure the physicians compelled him to practise. Gavin was just a hearty Englishman, fit and strenuous and needing no "waters" to make life endurable. He took what came to him and made no bones about it. Had he been a rich man himself, he would have done the same, he thought. Humbug was no part of his creed, and he never mistook necessity for self-sacrifice.