Her wide bright glance went past the tall wrapped-up figure of Patrine to the taller shape that bulked behind her. No small active boy-form danced in its wake. She put out her arms, groping blindly—swayed and would have fallen, but that Saxham strode past Patrine, caught the slender figure in his powerful embrace, turned and carried his wife away down the short corridor that led to the consulting-room.
"Miss Pat, my dear! There's cold supper all laid an' ready waitin' in the dining-room. By the Doctor's special orders, and I was to see you eat."
Thus Mrs. Keyse, now for years housekeeper at Harley Street, a little light-haired woman, common of speech and innocent of grammar, but a pearl of price in the Doctor's estimation and her mistress's right hand.
"Don't say they fed you at 'Endon on 'am and salad an' pigeon-pie. Trash is the word," said Mrs. Keyse, "for resturong pastry, and them there piegeons, if language could be given 'em, would bear me out in what I say."
But Patrine refused baked meats, submitting to be escorted to her room and tenderly fussed over by the kind, Cockney-tongued little woman, and yellow-haired pink-cheeked thirteen-year-old Janey, out of whose small triangular face looked the honest grey eyes of W. Keyse.
Both Mrs. Keyse and Janey had been crying, for Keyse, who acted as the Doctor's chauffeur, had broken bad news in the kitchen-regions. Master Bawne, according to Keyse, had been taken for a trip in one of them Hairos by a German flying-bloke, and it was feared—not having returned or been heard of—that Something or Other had gone wrong.
Mrs. Keyse, a born optimist, rejected the idea of accident or casualty with ringing sniffs of incredulity. Master Bawne, the blessed dear! had prob'ly bin kidnup' by some foreign Nobleman wanting a Nair. Trust a German, Mrs. Keyse would never! having when a young woman in service at Alexandra Crescent, Kentish Town, N.W., been treated something frightful by a young man who travelled in shaving-sets of German silver and other fancy articles of Teuton origin. Keyse must often have heard her mention That There Green?
Keyse responded, lighting his pipe, for his wife and daughter had accompanied him to their own private parlour in the basement, looking out across the yard to the garage over which Billy and Janey had been born:
"Twice a day since you and me stood up before the dodger to git married. But you never tipped me as 'ow the bloke was a bloomin' Fritzer before. 'Ow do you make it out? Switch me on to the notion! 'Cos o' somethink in the German nickel 'e drummed in gettin' into 'im an' affectin' 'is blood?"
Mrs. Keyse, impervious to sarcasm as incapable of grammar, maintained that the subject under discussion had spoke wiv' a Naxent particularly noticeable when upset. Broken English, in moments of passion, with red eyes and white 'air simpular to one o' them Verbenas, had in conjunction with a decided bent towards bigamy, and an appetite for other people's savings, distinguished That There Green.