“If I could put aside my patients for a week, and invent some excuse for taking up my abode at Jenkins House, I know I should soon find out all the mystery,” went on Dr. Knox.
“Arnold, why not take Madame St. Vincent into your confidence?”
Dr. Knox turned quickly round at the words to face his senior partner. He held up his finger warningly.
“Things are not ripe for it,” he said. “Let me get, or try to get, a little more inkling into matters than I have at present, as touching the domestic economy at Jenkins House. I may have to do as you say, later: but women are only chattering magpies; marplots, often with the best intentions; and Madame St. Vincent may be no exception.”
“Will you please come to tea?” interrupted Janet, opening the door.
Miss Cattledon, in a sea-green silk gown that I’m sure I had seen many times before, and the velvet on her thin throat, and a bow of lace on her head, shook hands with Mr. Tamlyn and Dr. Knox, and we sat down to tea. Little Arnold, standing by his mother in his plaid frock and white drawers (for the time to dress little children as men had not come in then by many a year), had a piece of bread-and-butter given to him. While he was eating it, the nurse appeared.
“Are you ready, Master Arnold? It is quite bedtime.”
“Yes, he is ready, Harriet; and he has been very good,” spoke Janet. And the little fellow went contentedly off without a word.
Miss Cattledon, stirring her tea at the moment, put the spoon down to look at the nurse, staring at her as if she had never seen a nurse before.
“That’s not Lettice Lane,” she observed sententiously, as the door closed on Harriet. “Where is Lettice Lane?”