“I’m afraid it is the want of my breakfast,” he said, forcing a laugh.
All Irene’s protective instincts were aroused.
“No breakfast—and you were going away without asking for anything to eat! Sit down at once and let me get something for you.”
She ran out of the room in her impulsive way, leaving him standing on the hearth-rug.
“Good God,” he said, throwing his hat and gloves onto the chair, “I never thought of it.” And he remained staring blankly at a picture in front of him until Irene returned.
CHAPTER X
From that moment Hugh walked on the edge of a volcano. To keep his thoughts from dizzy hoverings over the abyss, he chained them down, with desperate will, to the work he had on hand. In a week’s time would begin the February sittings of the Central Criminal Court. Good fortune had given him more than his usual share of briefs. One, a blackmailing case, made intricate by medical complications. His client, the defendant, a man in good position.
“If you can pull it off, Colman,” said old Harroway, the solicitor, who had known Hugh from boyhood, “you’ll go up like a released balloon.”