‘There is myself, there is Laura, then you, then a maid for my sister-in-law, and my man, and yours if you choose to bring him.’
‘In short, there will be three of us,’ said I; ‘no doctor?’
‘We cannot be too few. What would be the good of a doctor? Will you come?’
‘Do you sleep in town to-night?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, naming a hotel near Charing Cross.
‘Well, then, Wilfrid,’ said I, ‘you must give me to-night to think the thing over. What are your plans for to-morrow?’
‘I leave for Southampton at ten. Laura arrives there at six in the evening.’
‘Then,’ said I, ‘you shall have my answer by nine o’clock to-morrow morning. Will that do?’
‘It must do, I suppose,’ said he wearily, moving as if to rise, and casting a dull, absent sort of look at his watch.
A quarter of an hour later I was alone.