“Let him know and be damned to you!” said Matthew.
He flung open the door into the outer office, and stood rigid and white with anger, as Usher passed out. Then, when he was alone, he put his hand to his heart, and staggering to an old couch threw himself down half fainting among the papers with which it was piled.
A clerk, coming in a few moments later to announce a client, found him white and gasping. But he insisted to the frightened youth on his being well again, drank a glass of water, and with a sheer effort of will, dragged himself to his feet and concentrated his faculties.
“Show Sir Trevor in,” said he.
But the sudden attack rendered him weak and anxious for the rest of the day. He had never fainted like that before. It must have been the heat and the fury he had flown into with Usher. When he went home to lunch Miss Lanyon was alarmed at his appearance.
“Perhaps I'm a little bilious. It is the heat. It's nothing,” he said obstinately.
Miss Lanyon looked at him sadly out of her faded blue eyes. If Dorothy, herself, or any of the household showed signs of poorliness, he would worry himself to death about it, get the doctors in, ransack the town for delicacies, and send special messengers from the office during the day to make inquiries. But where he himself was concerned, he was impatient of interference. Miss Lanyon shook her head. Men were insoluble enigmas.
In the afternoon he went round the garden with his little granddaughter, submitting to be decorated with whatever flowers her childish fancy selected. He wore carnations round the ribbon of his hat, a Maréchal Niel rose in the lapel of his coat, and pansies stuck down his waistcoat, and he stalked on, gravely holding the child's hand and chatting with her on terms of comradeship. As they passed by the strawberry beds in the kitchen garden, Dorothy pointed to some ragamuffin children pressing their faces against the iron gate.
“Dirty little boys,” she announced fastidiously.
“What would you sooner give them,—soap or strawberries?” asked the old man.