She dismissed the idea of the telegram. She even said to herself that of course she had never entertained it. But what was she to do?
She tried to be a little cold to Jernington, thinking it might be possible to convey to him subtly the idea that perhaps his visit had lasted long enough, that his hostess had other plans in which his presence was not included.
But Jernington was conscious of no subtleties except those connected with the employment of musical instruments. And Charmian found it almost impossible to be glacial to such a simple and warm-hearted creature. His very boots seemed to claim her cordiality with their unabashed elastic sides. The way in which he pushed his cuffs out of sight appealed to the goodness of her heart, although it displeased her æsthetic sense. She had to recognize the fact that old Jernington was one of those tiresome people you cannot be unkind to.
Nevertheless she must get him out of the house and out of Africa.
If he stuck to the plan of leaving them at the end of August there would probably be no need of diplomacy, or of forcible ejection; but it had become obvious to Charmian that the last thing old Jernington was capable of doing was just that sticking to a plan.
"Do you mean to sail on the Maréchal Bugeaud or the Ville d'Alger?" she asked him.
"I wonder," he replied artlessly. "In my idea Berlioz was not really the founder of modern orchestration as some have asserted. Your husband and I—"
She could not stop him. She began to feel almost as if she hated the delicious orchestral family. Jernington had a special passion for the oboe. Charmian found herself absurdly feeling against that rustic and Arcadian charmer an enmity such as she had scarcely ever experienced against a human being. One night she spoke unkindly, almost with a warmth of malignity, about the oboe. Jernington sprang amorously to its defense. She tried to quarrel with him, but was disarmed by his fidelity to the object of his affections. She was too much a woman to rail against fidelity.
The 30th of August arrived. In the afternoon of that day she received the following telegram from Alston Lake: