That night the women went to their rooms early. As good nights were being exchanged, Chloe and Mrs. Verulam made one last agonised attempt to take part in a quiet whisper. But the Duchess pounced on Mrs. Verulam, Mr. Rodney leapt to Chloe's side, and the whisper died almost ere it was born. Mrs. Verulam ascended the staircase in a somewhat despairing manner, throwing an occasional glance down into the hall, in which Mr. Bliggins and other detectives were arranging various silver spirit-bottles, gold cigar-boxes, malachite ash-trays, and other male paraphernalia. For Mr. Rodney, now in a nervous fever which rendered him entirely reckless of conventionalities and consequences, had suddenly informed Mr. Harrison that the baronial hall must accommodate the smokers that night, his object being to occupy a post of vantage in the very centre of the palace, so that he might be on the spot to prevent any surreptitious conduct on Mrs. Verulam's part. He regarded her now very strangely as a socially ruined lunatic, whom yet he adored in a frenzied and unutterable manner, and he was becoming madly, feverishly jealous. Mrs. Verulam's apparent indifference to the appalling incident which had taken place that afternoon in the Enclosure convinced him that she was off her head, but his throbbing heart forced him to the terrible conclusion that it was a crazy passion for the supposed orange-grower which had made her so. For his sake she defied the world; for love of him she lay down in public at a race-meeting and let the old Countess of Sage go trampling over her. Van Adam had bewitched her; but he should not escape his surveillance to-night. On that Mr. Rodney was passionately determined. When, therefore, Chloe endeavoured as usual to slip away in the wake of the ladies, Mr. Rodney bounded up with the activity of a panther and placed himself before her in a jungle attitude.
"You are not going already, Van Adam!" he cried—"so early! Why, it is only about nine o'clock."
It was really a quarter to eleven.
Chloe yawned.
"I'm dead-beat," she began.
"Then a smoke will do you good. You must have a cigar—you must——"
And he laid hold of her arm with a pretended cordiality, which his twisted and wrinkled face belied. Chloe stood still and looked at him. She wanted terribly to get away and, by some stratagem, obtain an interview with Mrs. Verulam; at the same time, she did not wish to rouse any suspicion of her desire. She perceived that the owner of Mitching Dean was painfully excited: the veins stood out on his narrow forehead, his thin hands fluttered like a bird's wings, his moustache seemed to bristle with suspicion, and he stared at her like all Scotland Yard at a malefactor. This convulsed effigy made such an impression upon her that she took her foot from the staircase reluctantly and came back with him to the spirit-bottles, where the Duke was mixing himself a drink, while Mr. Ingerstall fumed in an armchair over a cigarette sent from a Parisian tobacconist, and Mr. Bush poured volumes of smoke out of Peter Jackson.
"A drink, my dear Van Adam," cried Mr. Rodney in a very theatrical manner—"a long drink, a strong drink, and a drink all together."
He was trying to be hilarious, without knowing the way to do it. The Duke turned round.