“Madam, I am not in the habit of being startled in this way,” he said, “nor do I like it.”
“On the contrary, dear, it was you who startled me,” she replied in her blandest accents, with a hand pressed to her left side. “Of course I naturally supposed that you had heard the door opened and shut, and was on the point of addressing you when you started up as if you had been shot.”
“Humph! I have had occasion before to-day to beg of you not to be quite so feline in your movements,” he answered with something like a snarl. “Did you—did you read any portion of the letter that was on the table in front of me?”
“My dear Gilbert, what do you take me for! That there was a letter there, I am aware, but as for reading as much as a line of it——”
“There, there, that will do. Just ring the bell, will you, and then tell me what you want to see me about.”
When the servant came in response to the summons, he said: “Tell Graves to bring the dog-cart round at once.”
Ten minutes later saw Sir Gilbert on his way to Mapleford with his son’s letter in his pocket. In such a contingency he felt that he could not do better than seek the advice of his valued counsellor.
Mr. Page, a tall, lanky, somewhat loose-jointed man, with a long thin face, a prominent nose and an expression that was a curious compound of hard common sense, shrewdness and good-nature, gave vent to a low whistle when he had come to the end of Alec’s epistle.
“What an exceedingly foolish young man!” were his first words.
“Why so, pray—why so?” demanded the baronet with a lifting of his eyebrows.