This was too much for Mr. Rodney. He stood stock still like one struck with paralysis.
"Mr. Bush!" he stuttered. "Then what does Mr. Van Adam stand for?"
"Chloe—er—Mr. Van Adam! What has he to say to the matter?"
"Oh, Mrs. Verulam, everything, everything! It is time, I see—it is time—I must—I ought to tell you the truth."
"Please do so."
He hesitated for a moment, passing a cambric pocket-handkerchief across his pallid lips; then he said:
"At least, let us come into the shade."
That "at least" gave the man's soul in a couple of words. He felt all the terror of his coming revelation. Mrs. Verulam assented, and they moved to a little grove of shrubs, monkey-trees, and other indigenous plants which grew near by. Here the sun was less ardent; here a soft breeze blew kindly; but here also something else occurred, which gave Mr. Rodney time to compose himself a little. As they came into this seclusion, artificially induced by the genius of the Bun Emperor's landscape-gardener, an unexpected vision burst upon their eyes. Beneath a monkey-tree of superb proportions, in a hammock suspended between substantial supports, they beheld Mr. Harrison laid out at full length smoking a large cigar in semi-unconsciousness, while the faithful Marriner alternately rocked him gently the while she hummed a crooning lullaby, and stroked the surface of his bald and dome-like head with the palm of her delicate hand. For a moment the charm of this quite unexpected fairy scene so enervated Mrs. Verulam and Mr. Rodney that they remained motionless in contemplation of it. The rhythmically rocking groom of the chambers, the shrill and monotonous cry of the lady's-maid in the sultry summer evening, created a sort of magical, unreal atmosphere. The slanting light, too, caught the bald head, and transformed it almost into the likeness of a globe of some glittering material. And as it swayed solemnly to-and-fro like the pendulum of a clock, in obedience to the motion given by the faithful Marriner to the hammock, it laid a hypnotic spell upon these two who gazed at it.
"Sleep, oh, sleep! it's never too late for that;
Sleep, yes, sleep, with your head upon the mat!
For the workman's train is passing nigh,
And the early milkman gives his cry,
You'll be taken to quod when the copper comes by,
So sleep, yes, slee-eep!"