At this point he was summoned to the telephone and returned distraught.
"It's an unknown female," he said. "She says that a boy of the name of William from this boarding-house has made her little girl sick by forcing her to eat seaweed. She says it's brutal. Does anyone know I'm here for a rest cure? Where is the boy? Good heavens! Where is the boy?"
But William, like Peggy, had retired from the world for a space. He returned later on in the afternoon, looking pale and chastened. He bore the reproaches of his family in stately silence.
Mr. Percival Jones was in great evidence in the drawing-room.
"And soon—er—soon the—er—Spring will be with us once more," he was saying in his high-pitched voice as he leant back in his chair and joined the tips of his fingers together. "The Spring—ah—the Spring! I have a—er—little effort I—er—composed on—er—the Coming of Spring—I—er—will read to you some time if you will—ah—be kind enough to—er—criticise—ah—impartially."
"Criticise!" they chorused. "It will be above criticism. Oh, do read it to us, Mr. Jones."
"I will—er—this evening." His eyes wandered to the door, hoping and longing for his beloved's entrance. But Ethel was with her father at a matinée at the Winter Gardens and he looked and longed in vain. In spite of this, however, the springs of his eloquence did not run dry, and he held forth ceaselessly to his little circle of admirers.
"The simple—ah—pleasures of nature. How few of us—alas!—have the—er—gift of appreciating them rightly. This—er—little seaside hamlet with its—er—sea, its—er—promenade, its—er—Winter Gardens! How beautiful it is! How few appreciate it rightly."
Here William entered and Mr. Percival Jones broke off abruptly. He disliked William.
"Ah! here comes our little friend. He looks pale. Remorse, my young friend? Ah, beware of untruthfulness. Beware of the beginnings of a life of lies and deception." He laid a hand on William's head and cold shivers ran down William's spine. "'Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever,' as the poet says." There was murder in William's heart.