“I have always wondered,” he said, “whether it was an early apprenticeship to a ghoul which has imparted such a mortuary turn to Mrs. Havergill’s conversation, or whether it is due to the fact of her having a few drops of Harvey’s Sauce in her veins.”
“Harvey’s Sauce?” inquired the bewildered Miss Dobell.
David explained in his best professional manner.
“I said Harvey’s Sauce because it is an old and cherished belief of mind that the same talented gentleman invented the sauce and composed the well-known ‘Meditations among the Tombs.’ The only point upon which I feel some uncertainty is this: Did he compose the Meditations because the sauce had disagreed with him, or did he invent the sauce as a sort of cheerful antidote to the Meditations? Now which do you suppose, Miss Dobell?”
Miss Dobell became very much fluttered.
“Oh, I’m afraid—” she began. “I really had no idea that Harvey’s Sauce was an unwholesome condiment. Yes, indeed, I fear that I cannot be of any great assistance, or in fact of any assistance at all. No, oh, no. I fear, Dr. Blake, that you must ask some one else who is better informed than myself. Oh, yes.”
Afterwards she confided to Mary Chantrey that she had never heard of the work in question. “Have you, my dear?”
“No, never,” said Mary, who was not greatly attracted by the title. Girls of two-and-twenty with a disposition to meditate among the tombs are mercifully rare.
“But,” pursued little Miss Dobell with a virtuous lift of the chin, “the title has a religious sound—yes, quite a religious sound. I hope, oh, yes, indeed, I hope that Dr. Blake has no dreadful sceptical opinions. They are so very shocking,” and Mary said, “Yes, they are, and I hope not, too.” Even in those days she was a little inclined to play at being David’s guardian angel.
Those days were two years old now. Sometimes it seemed to David that they belonged to another life.