"Do you also contemplate giving notice to the chef and his wife, our only chambermaid?"

"No, I don't," I snapped. "I think they were in bed."

He looked at me as if he thought I had gone crazy. I wriggled uncomfortably in my chair for a second or two, and then abruptly announced that we'd better get to work. I have never ceased to wonder what construction he could have put on that stupid slip of the tongue.

I cannot explain why, but at the slightest unusual sound that morning I found myself shooting an involuntary glance at the imperturbable features of Ludwig the Red. Sometimes I stopped in the middle of a sentence, to look and to listen rather more intently than seemed absolutely necessary, and on each occasion I was obliged to begin the sentence all over again, because, for the life of me, I couldn't remember what it was I had set out to say in dictation. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e had an air of patient tolerance about him that irritated me intensely.

More than once I thought I detected him in the act of suppressing a smile.

At eleven o'clock, Blatchford came to the door. His ordinarily stoical features bore signs of a great, though subdued excitement. I had a fleeting glimpse of Britton in the distance,--a sort of pa.s.sing shadow, as it were.

"A note for you, sir, if you please," said he. He was holding the salver almost on a level with his nose. It seemed to me that he was looking at it out of the corner of his eye.

My heart--my incomprehensible heart--gave a leap that sent the blood rushing to my face. He advanced, not with his usual imposing tread but with a sprightliness that pleased me vastly. I took the little pearl grey envelope from the salver, and carelessly glanced at the superscription. There was a curious ringing in my ears.

"Thank you, Blatchford; that will do."

"I beg pardon, sir, but there is to be an answer."

"Oh," said I. I had the feeling that at least fifty eyes were upon me, although I am bound to admit that both p.o.o.pend.y.k.e and the footman were actively engaged in looking in another direction.

I tore open the envelope.

"_Have you deserted me entirely? Won't you please come and see me?

Thanks 'for the violets, but I can't talk to violets, you know. Please come up for luncheon._"

I managed to dash off a brief note in a fairly nonchalant manner.

Blatchford almost committed the unpardonable crime of slamming the door behind him, he was in such a hurry to be off with the message.

Then I went over and stood above Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e.

"Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e," said I slowly, darkly, "what do you know about those violets?"

He quailed. "I hope you don't mind, Mr. Smart. It's all right. I put one of your cards in, so that there couldn't be any mistake."

CHAPTER XIII

I VISIT AND AM VISITED

Halfway up the winding stairways, I paused in some astonishment. It had just occurred to me that I was going up the steps two at a time and that my heart was beating like mad.

I reflected. Here was I racing along like a schoolboy, and wherefor?

What occasion was there for such unseemly haste? In the first place, it was now but a few minutes after eleven, and she had asked me for luncheon; there was no getting around that. At best luncheon was two hours off. So why was I galloping like this? The series of self-inflicted questions found me utterly unprepared; I couldn't answer one of them. My brain somehow couldn't get at them intelligently; I was befuddled. I progressed more slowly, more deliberately, finally coming to a full stop in a sitting posture in one of the window cas.e.m.e.nts, where I lighted a cigarette and proceeded to thresh the thing out in my mind before going any farther.

The fundamental problem was this: why was I breaking my neck to get to her before Blatchford had time to deliver my response to her appealing little note? It was something of a facer, and it set me to wondering. Why was I so eager? Could it be possible that there was anything in the speculation of my servants? I recalled the sensation of supreme delight that shot through me when I received her note, but after that a queer sort of oblivion seems to have surrounded me, from which I was but now emerging in a timely struggle for self-control.

There was something really startling about it, after all.

I profess to be a steady, level-headed, prosaic sort of person, and this surprising reversion to extreme youthfulness rather staggered me.

In fact it brought a cold chill of suspicion into existence. Grown-up men do not, as a rule, fly off the head unless confronted by some prodigious emotion, such as terror, grief or guilt. And yet here was I going into a perfect rampage of rapture over a simple, unconventional communication from a lady whom I had known for less than a month and for whom I had no real feeling of sympathy whatever. The chill of suspicion continued to increase.

If it had been a cigar that I was smoking it would have gone out through neglect. A cigarette goes on forever and smells.

After ten minutes of serious, undisturbed consideration of the matter, I came to the final conclusion that it was not love but pity that had driven me to such abnormal activity. It was nonsense to even argue the point.

Having thoroughly settled the matter to my own satisfaction and relief, I acknowledged a feeling of shame for having been so precipitous. I shudder to think of the look she would have given me if I had burst in upon her while in the throes of that extraordinary seizure. Obviously I had lost my wits. Now I had them once more, I knew what to do with them. First of all, I would wait until one o'clock before presenting myself for luncheon. Clearly that was the thing to do. Secondly, I would wait on this side of the castle instead of returning to my own rooms, thereby avoiding a very unpleasant gauntlet. Luckily I had profited by the discussion in the servants' quarters and was not wearing a three days' growth of beard. Moreover, I had taken considerable pains in dressing that morning. Evidently a presentiment.

For an hour and a half by my watch, but five or six by my nerves, I paced the lonely, sequestered halls in the lower regions of the castle.

Two or three times I was sure that my watch had stopped, the hands seemed so stationary. The third time I tried to wind it, I broke the mainspring, but as it was nearly one o'clock not much harm was done.

That one little sentence, _"Have you deserted me?"_ grew to be a voluminous indictment. I could think of nothing else. There was something ineffably sad and pathetic about it. Had she been unhappy because of my beastly behaviour? Was her poor little heart sore over my incomprehensible conduct? Perhaps she had cried through sheer loneliness--But no! It would never do for me to even think of her in tears. I remembered having detected tears in her lovely eyes early in our acquaintance and the sight of them--or the sensation, if you please--quite unmanned me.

At last I approached her door. Upon my soul, my legs were trembling!

I experienced a silly sensation of fear. A new problem confronted me: what was I to say to her? Following close upon this came another and even graver question: what would she say to me? Suppose she were to look at me with hurt, reproachful eyes and speak to me with a little quaver in her voice as she held out her hand to me timidly--what then?

What would become of me? By Jove, the answer that flashed through my whole body almost deprived me of reason!

I hesitated, then, plucking up my courage and putting all silly questions behind me, I rapped resoundingly on the door.

The excellent Hawkes opened it! I started back in dismay. He stood aside impressively.

"Mr. Smart!" he announced. d.a.m.n it all!

I caught sight of the Countess. She was arranging some flowers on the table. Blatchford was placing the knives and forks. Helen Marie Louise Antoinette stood beside her mistress holding a box of flowers in her hands.

What was it that I had been thinking out there in those gloomy halls?

That she would greet me with a pathetic, hurt look and...

"Good morning!" she cried gaily. Hurt? Pathetic? She was radiant! "So glad to see you again. Hawkes has told me how busy you've been." She dried her hands on the abbreviated ap.r.o.n of Helen Marie Louise Antoinette and then quite composedly extended one for me to shake.

I bowed low over it. "Awfully, awfully busy," I murmured. Was it relief at finding her so happy and unconcerned that swept through me? I am morally, but shamelessly certain it wasn't!

"Don't you think the roses are lovely in that old silver bowl?"

"Exquisite."

"Blatchford found it in the plate vault," she said, standing off to admire the effect. "Do you mind if I go on arranging them?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer resumed her employment.

"Bon jour, m'sieur," said Helen Marie Louise Antoinette over her mistress's shoulder. One never knows whether a French maid is polite or merely spiteful.

"It seems ages since I saw you last," said the Countess in a matter-of-fact tone, jiggling a rose into position and then standing off to study the effect, her head c.o.c.ked prettily at an angle of inquiry.

It suddenly occurred to me that she had got on very well without me during the ages. The discovery irritated me. She was not behaving at all as I had expected. This cool, even casual reception certainly was not in keeping with my idea of what it ought to have been. "But Mr.

p.o.o.pend.y.k.e has been awfully kind. He has given me all the news."

p.o.o.pend.y.k.e! Had he been visiting her without my knowledge or--was I about to say consent?

"There hasn't been a great deal of news," I said.