Mr. Ingerstall looked at him for an instant, and then cried like something whipped:
"It's a bullock!"
Mr. Bush glanced around with the air of a successful prize-fighter about to retire from the ring.
"That's all right!" he ejaculated, and leaning back he fell asleep again.
This incident, trifling enough in itself, was by no means trifling in its consequence. For it turned the scale in which Mrs. Verulam's heart was trembling. Down came the scale on Mr. Bush's side. The feminine confidence that had been ever so slightly shaken by the hero's beast-like retreat before the telescope of the Bun Emperor was now entirely restored. That retreat had been a lapse from the brave custom of a noble life, not an illustration from the existence of a coward. Mrs. Verulam knew from this moment that she was worshipping before a shrine that was really sacred, a shrine that deserved, that had earned, its incense. As the conqueror fell so calmly and confidently asleep, reposing, as it were, upon the very field of battle, she looked across at Chloe with eyes that claimed her tender sympathy. The Duchess intercepted the look, and darted indignant enquiry upon Mrs. Verulam, while Chloe, observing the accident, softly smiled with a pretty mischief. Unfortunately, her Grace, driven by dread suspicion, turned sharply towards Chloe, and surprised the smile at its climax. The Duchess swelled with fury. She now felt certain that she was being tricked by this abandoned couple. Her Pearl was being made a cat's-paw. Old Martha Sage was right. For a moment she sat shaking like a jelly in her armchair. Then she rose up, uttered a general "good night," that sounded like notes from a bass tuba, called the Lady Pearl, and swept in a distinctly frenzied manner up the staircase to bed.
"The Duchess is very quick on her pins," said Miss Bindler, looking after her. "Did she ever enter for a walking race?" she added to the Duke.
"Not since I married her," his Grace replied.
"She should; she'd stand a ten to one chance. Well, I'll be off to my loose-box, too, I think."
There was a general movement, through which Mr. Bush calmly slept. Lady Drake was just at the foot of the staircase when her sharp little eye was attracted by a pillar, something like a tiny Cleopatra's needle in shape, but bristling with handles and small knobs and buttons, which stood in a far corner of the hall.
"What's that?" she asked, in her thin voice that was like a squeeze of lemon-juice, pointing with her skeleton finger towards it.