"But he'll get such a shock when he sees you."
"He must look on it in the light of rent. I don't see why I shouldn't have a little passing amusement from this business."
He left the room. Jill heard the front door open. She waited breathlessly. Pity for Uncle Chris struggled with the sterner feeling that it served him right.
"Hullo!" she heard Wally say.
"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" replied an exuberant voice. "Wondered if I'd find you in, and all that sort of thing. I say, what a deuce of a way up it is here. Sort of get a chappie into training for going to heaven, what? I mean, what?"
Jill looked about her like a trapped animal. It was absurd, she felt, but every nerve in her body cried out against the prospect of meeting Freddie. His very voice had opened old wounds and set them throbbing.
She listened in the doorway. Out of sight down the passage, Freddie seemed by the sounds to be removing his overcoat. She stole out and darted like a shadow down the corridor that led to Wally's bedroom. The window of the bedroom opened on to the wide roof which Uncle Chris had eulogized. She slipped noiselessly out, closing the window behind her.
II
"I say, Mason, old top," said Freddie, entering the sitting-room, "I hope you don't mind my barging in like this, but the fact is things are a bit thick. I'm dashed worried, and I didn't know another soul I could talk it over with. As a matter of fact, I wasn't sure you were in New York at all, but I remembered hearing you say in London that you were popping back almost at once, so I looked you up in the telephone book and took a chance. I'm dashed glad you are back. When did you arrive?"
"This afternoon."