"They are coming," the clock-maker muttered, cringing in the doorway. The fine of action adopted was too violent for his taste. "But I hope the gentleman will go out quietly," he rejoined. "He must see he has no right here."
It was no question of courage; Sir Hervey had plenty of that. But he had no stomach for a low brawl; and at this moment he wished very heartily that he had let the young scapegrace go his own way. He had put his foot down, however, wisely or unwisely; and he could not now retreat.
"I shall not go," he said firmly. And as heavy, lumbering footsteps were heard coming along the passage, he turned to face the door.
"We'll see about that," Mrs. Clark cried spitefully. "Come in, men; come in! This is your gentleman."
CHAPTER XII
[DON QUIXOTE]
Coke had spent a dozen seasons in London; and naturally to those who lived about town his figure was almost as familiar as that of Sir Hanbury Williams, the beau of the last generation, or that of Lord Lincoln, the pride and hope of the golden youth of '42. The chairman who had never left the rank in St. James's Street in obedience to his nod was as likely as not to ask the way to Mrs. Cornely's rooms; the hackney-coachman who did not know his face and liveries was a stranger also to the front of White's, and to the cry of "Who goes home?" that on foggy evenings drew a hundred link-boys to New Palace Yard. In his present difficulty his principal, and almost his only hope of escaping from a degrading scuffle lay in this notoriety.
It bade fair to be justified. The two men who slouched into the room in obedience to Mrs. Clark's excited cry had scarcely crossed the threshold when they turned to him and grinned, and the foremost made him a sort of bow. Sir Hervey stared, and wondered where he had seen the men before; but in a twinkling his doubt, as well as the half-smothered cry that at the same instant burst from madam's lips, were explained.
"Mrs. Oriana Clark, otherwise Grocott?" the elder man muttered, and, stepping forward briskly, he laid a slip of paper on the table before her. "At suit of Margam's, of Paul's Churchyard, for forty-seven, six, eight, debt and costs. Here's the capias. And there's a detainer lodged." So much said, he seemed to feel the official part of his duty accomplished, and he turned with a wink to Grocott. "Much obliged to the old gentleman for letting us in. As pretty a capture as I ever made! Trigg, mind the door."
The miser who sees his hoarded all sink beneath the waves; the leader who, in the flush of victory, falls into the deadly ambush and knows all lost; the bride widowed on her wedding morn--these may in some degree serve to image madam at that moment. White to the lips, her eyes staring, she plucked at the front of her dress with one hand, and, leaning with the other against the wall, seemed to struggle for speech.