Barbara thanked him for all his kindness and ordered two taxis. One took the maid and the luggage to Berkeley Square; in the other she drove to the County Club and enquired bravely for Mr. Waring. The porter replied that he had left the club immediately after luncheon, and she made her way to the Temple. Hitherto she had not dreamed that there would be any difficulty in finding him; but Middle Temple Lane, narrow, cold and almost empty, daunted her. It was the first of August, and the rows of names painted at the foot of each staircase looked ownerless and impersonal as grave-yard head-stones in the general desolation. As she pattered up two flights of stone steps to Jack's chambers, the giddiness which had overtaken her in the train returned and stopped her short with a pain in her side. The walls were advancing and retiring, the banisters swayed and the floor of the landing heaved gently like a pitching boat.
When she felt steadier, she knocked at the door and waited patiently until she heard feet shuffling in the distance. A pink-faced elderly man informed her that Mr. Waring had gone away for the Long Vacation; he spoke with a strong Cockney accent, and Barbara decided that he must be the clerk with whom she had contended by telephone and whom she had imagined to be obsequious and yet sinister, with red eyes, short hair and bitten nails, a second Uriah Heep.
"Do you know where I can find him?" she asked.
"The first address he give me was at Raglan——"
"Ah, but he came back to London last night. He's not been here to-day?"
"No, miss."
"Do you know his address in Hampshire? Do you think you could telephone to find out whether he's there?"
The clerk scratched his head and referred to a list of numbers pinned in the passage by the telephone. Barbara had disturbed his afternoon sleep, but she was an uncommonly pretty young woman, some one to relieve the monotony of the moribund chambers; expensively dressed, too, and one who would liberally repay a little trouble. His curiosity was whetted by her coming to see young Waring; still waters ran deep....
"If you'll come in and sit down, miss," he suggested hospitably. "What nime shall I siy?"