Quixtus passed his hand across his forehead and looked at the porter as if awakening out of a dream.
“What you like,” said he.
So forlorn and hag-ridden did he appear, that a wave of pity swept through Clementina. The deadly phrase of the judge in the Marrable trial occurred to her: “Such men as you ought not to be allowed to go about loose.” The mothering instinct more than her natural forcefulness, made her take charge of the situation.
“The omnibus of the Hôtel du Louvre,” she said to the man, and taking Quixtus by the arm, she led him like a child out of the station.
“Get in,” she said with rough kindliness, pushing him towards the step of the omnibus. But he moved aside for her to precede him. Clementina said “Rubbish!” and entered the vehicle. She was no longer playing at being a lady. Quixtus followed her, and the omnibus clattered down the steep streets and jolted and swayed through the traffic and between the myriad tramcars that deface and deafen the city. The morning sun shone fiercely. The pavements baked. The sun-drenched buildings burned hot to the eye and the very awnings in the front of shops and over stalls in the markets suggested heat rather than coolness. Far away at the end of the Cannebière, the strip of sea visible glittered like a steel blade.
“Whew!” gasped Clementina, “what heat!”
“I feel it rather chilly,” said Quixtus.
She stared at him, wiping a damp forehead. What was the matter with the man?
When they entered the fairly cool vestibule of the hotel, the manager met them and assigned the rooms. They asked for Hammersley. Alas, said the manager, he was very ill. The doctor was with him even now. An elderly man in thin, sunstained tweeds, who had been sitting in a corner playing with a child of five or six in charge of a Chinese nurse, came forward and greeted them.
“Are you the friends Mr. Hammersley telegraphed for? Miss Wing and Dr. Quixtus? My name is Poynter. I was a fellow passenger of Mr. Hammersley’s on the ‘Moronia.’ He was a sick man when he started; and got worse on the voyage. Impossible to land at Brindisi. Arrived here, he could go no further either by boat or train. He was quite helpless, so I stayed on till his friends could come. It was I who wrote out and sent the telegrams.”