“I understand,” said he faintly. “I understand that I am a trustee for Hammersley’s daughter. I wasn’t expecting it. I hope you’ll not think it discourteous if I leave you? I’m not quite myself to-day. I’ll go and rest.”
He entered the lift which had been standing open for some time. There is not a feverish hurry in Marseilles hotels between steamers in June. Clementina with a gesture checked the lift-boy. The man must be looked after at once. She turned to Poynter.
“Like a dear good soul,” she said, in her frank way, “go down and prepare the child for such a rough-and-tumble stepmother as me. I’ll be with you in a few minutes. What’s your number, Ephraim?” He showed her the ticket. “Two hundred and seventy?”
“Au troisième, Madame.”
The lift gate clicked. They mounted a couple of floors. The chambermaid of the étage showed them into number two hundred and seventy. Then Clementina took command. In less than two minutes windows were opened and shutters adjusted, the waiter was despatched for coffee, the valet was unpacking and arranging Quixtus’s personal belongings, and the chambermaid spreading the bed invitingly open. When Clementina was a lady, she behaved in the most self-effacing and early Victorian ladylike way in the world. But when she was Clementina and wanted to do things, she would have ordered the devil about like a common lackey, and boxed the ears of any archangel who ventured to interfere with her.
Quixtus, unprepared for this whirlwind ministration on the part of Clementina, whom he had hitherto regarded rather as an antagonistic principle than as a sympathetic woman, sat bolt upright on the edge of the sofa and looked on with an air of mystification. Yet, feeling weak and broken, he was content to let her tend him.
“Take off your clothes and go to bed,” said Clementina, standing, hands on hips, in front of him. “For two pins I’d undress you myself and put you to sleep like a baby.”
A wan smile flickered over his features.
“I’m very grateful to you for your kindness. Perhaps a little rest will bring mental adjustment. That’s what I think I need—mental adjustment.”
He repeated the words several times, and sat staring in front of him.