Sophia made but one bound to the threshold, lifted the latch, and threw her weight against the door. It was fastened.
"Open!" she cried, enraged at the trick which had been played her. "Do you hear me? Open the door this minute!" she repeated, striking it furiously with her hands. "What do you mean? How dare you shut me in?"
This time the only response was the low chuckling laugh of the clock-maker as he turned away. She heard the stealthy fall of his footsteps as he went through the outer room; then the grating of the key, as he locked the farther door behind him. Then--silence.
"Tom!" Sophia shrieked, kicking the door, and pounding it with her little fists. "Tom, help! help, Tom!" And then, as she realised how she had been trapped, "Oh, poor Tom!" she sobbed. "Poor Tom! I can do nothing now!"
While Grocott, listening on the stairs, chuckled grimly. "You thought you were going to stop my girl's marriage, did you?" he muttered, shaking his fist in the direction of the sounds. "You thought you'd stop her being my lady, did you? Stop her now if you can, my little madam. I have you like a mouse in a trap; and when you are cooler, my Lady Maitland shall let you out. My lady, ha! ha! What a sound it has. My Lady Maitland!"
Then reflecting that Hawkesworth, whom he hated, and had cause to hate, had placed this triumph in his grasp--and would now, as things had turned out, get nothing by it--he shook with savage laughter. "Lady Maitland!" he chuckled. "Ho! ho! And he gets--the shells! The shells, ho! ho!"
CHAPTER X
[SIR HERVEY TAKES THE FIELD]
In his rooms at the corner house between Portugal Street and Bolton Street, so placed that by glancing a trifle on one side of the oval mirror before him he could see the Queen's Walk and the sloping pastures of the Green Park, Sir Hervey Coke was being shaved. A pile of loose gold which lay on the dressing-table indicated that the evening at White's had not been unpropitious. An empty chocolate cup and half-eaten roll stood beside the money, and, with Sir Hervey's turban-cap and embroidered gown, indicated that the baronet, who in the country broke his fast on beef and small beer, and began the day booted, followed, in town, town fashions. To-day, however, early as it was--barely ten--his wig hung freshly curled on the stand, and a snuff-coloured coat and long-flapped waistcoat, plainly laced, were airing at the fire; signs that he intended to be abroad betimes, and on business.
Perhaps the business had to do with an open letter in his lap, at which the man who was shaving him cocked his eye inquisitively between strokes. Or perhaps not, for Sir Hervey did not seem to heed this curiosity; but the valet had before had reason--and was presently to have fresh reason--to know that his taciturn master saw more than he had the air of seeing.