“I shouldn’t let you,” said Aunt Emma.
“Meanwhile,” interrupted Rosalind, “we’re not giving your brother anything to eat. Let me run off to our rooms and get something ready.”
The opportunity came here for Louisa to tell her brother how good Rosalind had been, what a first-class nurse she had proved herself, how bright and attentive. “I should have kicked the bucket, I think,” said Louisa looking out across the sea rather thoughtfully, “if it hadn’t been for her. And such a manager! Isn’t she, Aunt Emma?” Erb listening, began to feel that the world was not such a bad world after all. He talked hopefully, but vaguely, of either going to Canada, where he believed a man with a handful of capital was welcomed, and estates presented to him by a hospitable Government, or to New South Wales, where, so far as he could ascertain, labour leaders were in demand, and treated with proper amount of trustfulness. On Aunt Emma asking whether these places were not in point of fact a long way off, Erb was forced to admit that they were a pretty tidy step, and that, everything else being equal, he would prefer to stay in the London where he had been born—the London that he knew, the London that he liked.
“I haven’t played the game well,” admitted Erb candidly. “I’ve tried to be fair and straightforward with both sides, and I’ve managed to fall down in between them. And I’ve hurt myself!”
They had nearly finished their steak at dinner, and Louisa, breaking from new and fiercer condemnation of Alice, was about to inquire of Rosalind whether there was anything for after, when a miniature telegraph boy passed the window in Portland Street, and gave a double knock, altogether out of proportion to his size, at the front door. The landlady’s daughter brought in a telegram, and “Please,” said the landlady’s daughter (inspecting Erb with curiosity, in order to give a report to her mother), “Please is there any answer?”
“Just heard of trouble. Lady Frances wishes to see you this evening. Most important.—Alice.”
“Take no notice of it,” said Louisa, not yet restored to coolness. “Ignore it!”
Rosalind offered no counsel. Aunt Emma watched her narrowly. Erb considered for a moment, looking from one to another.
“Thought you were going to stay with us a few days?” remarked his sister.
“I ought to go back if it’s really important,” he said. “And Lady Frances is a young lady who doesn’t like being disappointed.”