“You vixen,” I thought. “Yes; I’ll come and see you fast enough. It will give me the greatest pleasure to see you crushed and humiliated.”
I collected my evening clothes from a man of the name of Attenborough, whom I employ to take care of them when they are not likely to be wanted; found a white shirt, which looked presentable after a little pruning of the cuffs with a razor; and drove to the Gunton-Cresswells’s in time for dinner.
There was a certain atmosphere of unrest about the house. I attributed this at first to the effects of the James Orlebar Cloyster bomb-shell, but discovered that it was in reality due to the fact that Eva was going out to a fancy-dress ball that night.
She was having dinner sent up to her room, they told me, and would be down presently. There was a good deal of flitting about going on. Maids on mysterious errands shot up and down stairs. Old Mr. Gunton-Cresswell, looking rather wry, was taking cover in his study when I arrived. Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell was in the drawing-room.
Before Eva came down I got a word alone with her. “I’ve had a nice, straight-forward letter from James,” she said, “and he has done all he can to put things straight with us.”
“Ah!” said I.
“That telegram, he tells me, was the outcome of a sudden panic.”
“Dear me!” I said.
“It seems that he made some most ghastly mistake about his finances. What exactly happened I can’t quite understand, but the gist of it is, he thought he was quite well off, whereas, really, his income is infinitesimal.”
“How odd!” I remarked.