"Sure to be cold, sir, now! Because both the other gentlemen's run it on." To those acquainted with the heating gear of bathrooms the way the old supply proves lukewarm, and nothing bracing comes to pass, is well known. The Baronet referred to it again as he met Samuel returning on his way to the bath. Was he sure it was cold? Yes, Samuel was; and that was Miss Judith, he found, that had gone off in the motor, after breakfasting early in her own room. As witness Mr. Elphinstone and Miss Judith's maid Tilley.
Sir Murgatroyd never wondered much at anything his family did. He had a beautiful faith that everything was all right always, and asked few or no questions. Still, he would wonder a little, tentatively, at rare intervals. Only he strained at gnats and swallowed camels. This time he swallowed the camel of Judith's early departure after a solitary breakfast. That was all right—it was some appointment with the Duchess, "or something." But he strained at the gnat of her having left her little attendant behind. He had a superstition that the absence of any two persons, known to be together, was never a thing to cause anxiety; but he was liable to fidgeting about any of his family unaccounted for, if he supposed them to be alone. There may be other people like him.
It was this superstition that caused Sir Murgatroyd to say to Lady Arkroyd—through a door between their rooms that he opened on purpose, having become aware of the departure of her ladyship's maid—"What has Judith gone out so early for?" To which the reply was: "You must speak plainer. I can't hear you while you shave." For during shaving the shaver's attention cannot be fully given to speech, owing to the interdependence of razor, eye, and jaw in a delicate relation to one another, to say nothing of the care needed to preserve a soapless mouth.
So Sir Murgatroyd wound up his shave before he spoke again, adding to his first question the words, "In the motor."
"How do you know she went in the motor?"
"Samuel said so. Besides, I heard it go."
"I suppose I was asleep.... Oh no!—I can't account for Judith's vagaries. She goes her own way. I suppose she's taken the child with her—her maid, I mean?"
"Why, no, she hasn't! That's just it...."
"I didn't mean that. I meant that if she hadn't, Cintilla would know." That is to say, her ladyship washed her hands of any complicity in the Bart.'s superstition spoken of above. She always, in talking of her husband, to the Duchess for instance, affected a Spartan stolidity; saying that no one who did not know him as she did would ever suspect Murgatroyd of being such an hysterical character.
Nevertheless, she felt curiosity about Judith, and bade Mrs. Cream, her own lady's-maid, summon Cintilla to give evidence. Only first she closed the door into her husband's room, not to be open to any imputation of hysteria. The Baronet accepted his exclusion the more readily that he had just rung for Samuel. For his relation towards that young man, who was officially his valet, was that he allowed him to help him on with his coat as soon as he himself was otherwise complete. He had to, or Samuel wouldn't have been his valet.