“Oh, all right. I will turn up about three to-morrow. And take my advice; get a good night’s rest and some cooling medicine.”
Sir Egerton could not quite succeed in hiding the contempt in his tone, and when Cyril held out his hand, he pretended not to see it, and took his leave with merely a stiff bow; but his lack of courtesy did not seem to discompose his host. When the door had closed behind the British Minister, Cyril leaned back in his chair, and laughed long and silently.
“My dear Stratford,” he said, “I wonder whether you dislike me more at this moment than you will do when you see me back again, and know that you have been sold.”
“Vera,” said Sir Egerton, entering his wife’s boudoir on his return to the Legation, “do you want the carriage to-morrow?”
“The large carriage? No, but you promised to take me a drive in the dogcart.”
“So I did. I’m afraid I had forgotten. The fact is, Vera, I have promised to get Mortimer out of the city. The fellow has lost all his nerve—he is in a regular blue funk, thinks every one is going to murder him, a most ghastly state of mind—and I am to get him past the gates disguised as Wallis. One couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the poor beggar, though it made me pretty sick to see an Englishman carrying on in the way he did. I can tell you I let him have it once or twice, I was so disgusted.”
“You mustn’t be hard upon him, Egerton. Every one has not such nerve as you. And you had plenty of practice in bravery, too, at Kubbet-ul-Haj.”
“You funny little woman! that is quite one of your ideas. Do you know that I sometimes wish I was back at Kubbet-ul-Haj now, with all the danger, instead of making mountains of talk out of molehills of fact in these wretched miniature states?”
“Oh, but you will be Ambassador at Czarigrad or Minister at Estevan one day, and then there will be great things to do again. I should be miserable if I thought you would be kept here always, Egerton.”
“Do you know that you are a very heartless person, Lady Stratford, and that to gratify your ambition you would like to send your husband into danger? But I shall have the consolation of insisting upon your accompanying me.”