“No. He rang up on the telephone from the office of a house agent in Valley Fields. He has taken a house there and wished to give my name as a reference.”
“Valley Fields? Why Valley Fields?”
“Don’t keep on saying why,” cried Lord Tilbury tempestuously. “Haven’t I told you a dozen times that I don’t know why—that I haven’t the least idea why?”
“He does seem an eccentric boy.”
“Eccentric? I feel as if I had allowed myself to be saddled with the guardianship of a dancing dervish. And when I think that if this young idiot gets into any sort of trouble while he is under my charge, Pynsent is sure to hold me responsible. I could kick myself for ever having been fool enough to bring him over here.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself, Georgie.”
“It isn’t a question of blaming myself. It’s a question of Pynsent blaming me and getting annoyed and breaking off the deal about the island.”
And Lord Tilbury, having removed his thumbs from the armholes of his waistcoat in order the more freely to fling them heavenwards, uttered a complicated sound which might be rendered phonetically by the word “Cor!” tenser and more dignified than the “Coo!” of the lower-class Londoner, but expressing much the same meaning.
In the hushed silence which followed, the buzzer on the desk sounded.
“Yes? Eh? Oh, send him up.” Lord Tilbury laid down the instrument and turned to his sister grimly. “Shotter is downstairs,” he said. “Now you will be able to see him for yourself.”