After we had left the table, I saw Jervis Fanshawe take the other man aside, and begin talking to him in a low voice, as though impressing something upon him. But Hockley shook him off, and answered whatever had been said aloud.
"I tell you I'm going—and the best thing you can do is to go with me. If it comes to that, you know what I am when I get a bit excited; I might need your restraining hand. You'd better make up your mind when you'll go, and I'll make my arrangements accordingly."
My guardian said nothing, and the other man threw himself into a large armchair, and began to smoke. It was quite late, and I had already begun to think about going, when he got up, and went off without so much as a word of farewell to either of us. Only at the door, with his hat on the back of his head, he came back to demand an answer to the question he had put at least an hour before.
"What date will suit you—next week?" he asked.
Jervis Fanshawe did not look at him; he was nervously twisting his hands together behind his back. "I shall go down on Tuesday to Hammerstone Market," he said, "and I shall stay at the house."
"Good. I shall stay at the George." Hockley lurched out of the doorway, and we heard him slam the outer door of the house as he went away.
And instantly there came a remarkable change over my guardian. In all my life I never remember to have seen a man so suddenly become a wild beast in a moment as Jervis Fanshawe did then. He ran to the door, and pulled it open, and spluttered out blasphemies into the darkness of the staircase; slammed the door, and came back into the room again, and raged up and down there, saying horrible things about Hockley until my blood seemed to run cold. And all the time taking not the faintest notice of me at all.
Presently he sat down at the table, pulling at his lips with his long fingers, and still muttering and breathing hard; it was like the gradual dying away of a storm. After a time I ventured to speak to him, and to wish him good-night; I believe I muttered some thanks for my entertainment. As he took no notice of me, I went to the door, and found my way to the place where my hat was; I was going out, when I heard his voice calling to me sharply. I went back, and found him waiting there, with a face that was comparatively calm.
"I don't know much about you artist fellows," he said, without looking at me—"but I believe you sketch—paint out of doors—don't you?" As I murmured that we did sometimes do that kind of thing, he went on hurriedly: "I know a place where you would probably find some good bits to sketch; you'd better go down with me. It's the place that fellow spoke of just now—Hammerstone Market. I've got to go down there—on business; old Patton lives there."
"Patton?" I asked vaguely; for I seemed to have seen the name somewhere.