“Mr. Romaine,” he said, pleadingly, “I’m afraid, sir, it’ll—be the death of you.”
“You’ll be the death of me another way,” vigorously responded Mr. Romaine. “You’ll enrage me so that I’ll break a blood vessel.”
Bridge went and got the necessary things, and Mr. Romaine made a ghastly toilet. He was always particular about the tying of his white cravat, and on this especial evening almost took poor Bridge’s head off and ruined four ties before one was done to suit him. When he got through, he was gasping for breath, but perfectly undaunted.
The nervous apprehension of the young doctor about Mr. Romaine communicated itself to everybody at Shrewsbury. They all, from the Chessinghams and Miss Maywood down to the very house dogs, that whined in their loneliness and imprisonment to the house, felt as if something ghastly and terrible was descending with the night. All except Mr. Romaine himself, who maintained an uncanny sort of gaiety all day long, and who, every time Chessingham visited him, was found cackling over some humorous journals that had arrived a day or two before. But the young doctor could not quite appreciate the funny cartoons and lively jokes, and his grave face seemed to afford Mr. Romaine much saturnine amusement.
The day that was so long at Shrewsbury was very short at Corbin Hall. The Colonel was simply delighted with Madame de Fonblanque, and harangued to Letty privately upon Romaine’s deuced unchivalric conduct to a noble, attractive, and blameless woman. This excellent man had accepted Madame de Fonblanque at her face value. Letty was more worldly wise than the Colonel, but she, too, had fallen a victim to Madame de Fonblanque’s charms and was only too ready to think Mr. Romaine a brute.
After a delightful day, spent chiefly in the comfortable old library, where they could bid defiance to the cold and snow without, a wholly unexpected visitor turned up just at nightfall. A loud knock at the front door, much yelping of dogs and stamping of booted feet announced an arrival.
There had been an understanding that Sir Archy was to repeat his visit later in the winter. He was liable to arrive at any day, and when the commotion in the large and dusky hall was heard, the Colonel only voiced the general impression of the group around the library fire when he said:
“It is no doubt our kinsman, Sir Archibald.” But it was not “Sir Archibald”—and the next minute Farebrother came walking in, as if he had just been around the corner. His face was ruddy with the biting wintry air, and his eyes were bright.
The Colonel was openly charmed to see him; so was Miss Jemima, and Letty’s face turned such a rosy red that it told a little story of its own. Farebrother explained that he was on his way home from the South on a professional trip, and had written that he would stop over two or three days at Corbin Hall. His letters had not been received—the mails being conducted upon a happy-go-lucky schedule in that part of the world—and on finding the river closed by ice when he left the railway twenty-five miles away, he had hired horses and had driven the distance that day in spite of the storm.
It was certainly good to see him—he was so cheerful, so manly, so full of fresh and breezy life. When he, as it were, was dragged into the library by the Colonel, Madame de Fonblanque was not present—she had gone to her room for a little rest before supper. In a little while the Colonel began to tell about her—and once started on a theme, he could not resist airing his opinion of “Romaine’s utter want of courtesy and consideration for a woman.”