“Oi!” called Mr. Trevor. “Come back, you fool!”
“Ssh!” whispered the voice of Mr. Maturin.
Mr. Trevor said bitterly: “You’re swanking, that’s all!”
“It’s a girl!” whispered the voice of Mr. Maturin, whereupon Mr. Trevor, who yielded to no man in the chivalry of his address towards women, at once advanced, caught up Mr. Maturin and, without a thought for his own safety, was about to pass ahead of him when Beau Maturin had the bad taste to whisper “’Ware razors!” and thus again held the lead.
She who wept, now almost inaudibly, was a dark shape just within the passage. Her face, says Mr. Trevor, was not visible, yet her shadow had not those rather surprising contours which one generally associates with women who weep in the night.
“Madam,” began Mr. Maturin.
“Oh!” sobbed the gentle voice. “He is insulting me!”
Mr. Trevor lays some emphasis on the fact that throughout the course of that miserable night his manners were a pattern of courtliness. Thinking, however, that a young lady in a situation so lachrymose would react more favourably to a fatherly tone, he said:
“My child, we hope——”
“Ah!” sobbed the gentle voice. “Please go away, please! I am not that sort!”