"I'm afraid it's too late," I answered regretfully.
"Afraid?"
"Your father and mother...."
"Would you if I were left an orphan?"
"Of course I would, but you mustn't say things like that even in joke."
Gladys poured me out a cup of tea and extended a cream jug at a menacing angle.
"Not for worlds if it's China," I exclaimed.
"It is. Uncle Toby...." She seemed to hesitate over the name, but I prefer it to Simon and bowed encouragement, "I'm going to be an orphan in three days' time. At least, it's that or very sea-sick."
I begged for an explanation. It appeared that Pont Street was in domestic convulsion over the health of Mr. Justice Merivale. As Roden had hinted, a succession of militant outrages directed against his person and property, not to mention threatening letters and attempted violence, had seriously shaken his nerve. Under doctor's orders he was leaving England for a short sea cruise as soon as the Courts rose at Whitsun.
"He's only going to Marseilles and back," she explained. "Mother's going with him, and something's got to be done with me. I don't want to make a nuisance of myself, but I should simply die if they tried to take me through the Bay."