“Easily. He will be rather a big child to deal with, but I guess he is nearly at the end of his tether—we will kidnap him.”
CHAPTER XX.
A CRITICAL GAME.
The day after the one in which so many confidences had been bestowed upon Mrs. Dollman and her friends by Miss Stratton was one of considerable anxiety to the latter. Poor little Phœbe, although one of the brightest and nicest women in the world, was a very bad actress, and she could not for the life of her treat Mr. Staines with the same cordiality as before, although warned of the immense importance of self-restraint. Personally, she did not feel as aggrieved as might have been expected, for her heart had never been touched, although she had been led to admire a man who knew very well how to be fascinating when he pleased. Now she felt extremely disgusted with herself for having been pleased with the flattery her lodger had bestowed upon her, and the young fellow of whom her brother-in-law had spoken as an honest admirer now stood a good chance of getting his innings.
But, try as she might, she could not help showing something of the detestation which a knowledge of Gregory Staines’ real character had awakened in her. As he sat at her breakfast-table, she pictured poor Harley Riddell languishing for his crime in prison. And when, after being out for a few hours, he faced her at the dinner-table, she conjured Hilton’s spectre behind him, and was seized with such a trembling that she let the soup-ladle fall back into the soup-tureen with a crash that cracked the latter, and a splash that covered the tablecloth and her dress with the hot liquid. Suspecting the real cause of her emotion, Miss Stratton, who was sitting near her, pressed her foot warningly upon hers, and exclaimed solicitously—
“You seem quite shaky to-day, Mrs. Dollman. Are you not well?”
“Oh, yes, I am quite well, thank you,” replied the little widow. “But I’m all in a tremble with something or other. It’s the heat, I think.”
The heat! And it had been found necessary to have a good fire in the dining-room, as everybody was complaining of the cold. Miss Stratton felt the moment to be a critical one. But she did not lose her self-possession, although she saw the sudden suspicion which leaped into the eyes of Gregory Staines, who, with knife and fork slightly raised from his plate, was sitting immovable, mutely questioning the faces of the blundering Phœbe and herself.
“Really,” she laughed, “if you go on like this, I shall swear that you are in love, and that your inamorato has had the bad taste to transfer his affections elsewhere. Fancy complaining of the cold one minute, and being all of a tremble with the heat the next! Those are genuine love symptoms—I’ve felt them myself.”
As Miss Stratton spoke, with such apparent disregard of Phœbe’s feelings, she darted an admiring and meaning look at Gregory Staines, which at once put that gentleman at his ease again for a little while.