CHAPTER XXXII
[A FORGOTTEN COAT]
Lady Jane Carruthers was one of those elderly ladies who are never quite well, yet seldom actually ill. She was a great believer in what she called "air."
"If you breathe the right air you're all right; and if you breathe the wrong air you're all wrong, and there's the whole science of medicine in a nutshell; believe me, my dear, because I know; mine's the teaching of actual experience. So long as I'm well in a place I stay there; I know the air's right; but so soon as I begin to feel a little out of sorts I know the air has ceased to be right, I go away at once; the consequence is that there are very few people who move about as much as I do."
It chanced that, in one of her pursuits after the right air, Lady Jane went to Littlehampton; and, being there, with nothing to do except breathe the right air, by way of doing something she sent for her nephew, the Hon. Robert Spencer. She dispatched to him this telegram--
"Come down to me this afternoon. I wish to speak to you."
When he received the telegram the Honourable Robert pulled a face; he happened to have a good deal to do. His impulse was to wire back--
"Can't come. Speak on."
However, he felt that the result of such a message might be disastrous; so, instead of sending it, he obeyed his aunt's commands, and went down to Littlehampton.
On his arrival, in response to his inquiries, Lady Jane informed him that the local air was still on its trial; she was not yet quite sure if it was, or was not, all right. It was true that she had had a touch of indigestion; but she was not certain if that had anything to do with the lobster salad she had had for luncheon three days running, or with some peculiarity in the neighbouring atmosphere. It was true that too much ozone was a disturbing influence; on the other hand she admitted that yesterday she had eaten rather more of the salad than she had meant to eat. Certainly the local lobsters were delicious; she had determined so much; but, for the present, the question of the quality of the local air was in suspense. The nephew knew his aunt. He was aware that if he asked her if there actually was anything which she wished to speak to him about she would look at him with chilly gaze, and inquire if she had not been speaking to him on matters of the most serious import already. Was he a Christian? Was he void of all human feeling? Did he take no interest in her health? Then what did he mean? As he did not wish to be asked what he meant in a tone of voice he had heard before, he listened to her ladyship doubting, now the lobsters, now the air, with the best grace in the world; for the Honourable Robert Spencer really was an excellent fellow. And, in course of time, his virtue was rewarded.