"For not displaying more patience," said Robert, slowly. "But I was afraid of--of being forestalled."

Miss Hartley succeeded in divesting her face of every atom of expression. Robert Vyner gazed at her admiringly.

"I am glad that you understand me," he murmured. "It makes things easier for me. I don't suppose that you have the faintest idea how shy and sensitive I really am."

Miss Hartley, without even troubling to look at him, said that she was quite sure she had not.

"n.o.body has," said Robert, shaking his head, "but I am going to make a fight against it. I am going to begin now. In the first place I want you not to think too hardly of my father. He has been a very good father to me. We have never had a really nasty word in our lives."

"I hope you never will have," said Joan, with some significance.

"I hope not," said Robert; "but in any case I want to tell you-"

Miss Hartley s.n.a.t.c.hed away the hand he had taken, and with a hasty glance at the door retreated a pace or two from him.

"What is the matter?" he inquired, in a low voice.

Miss Hartley's eyes sparkled.

"My eldest daughter has just come in," she said, demurely. "I think you had better go."

CHAPTER XXIII

MRS. CHINNERY received the news of her brother's marriage with a calmness that was a source of considerable disappointment and annoyance to her friends and neighbours. To begin with, n.o.body knew how it had reached her, and several worthy souls who had hastened to her, hot-foot, with what they had fondly deemed to be exclusive information had some difficulty in repressing their annoyance. Their astonishment was increased a week later on learning that she had taken a year's lease of No. 9, Tranquil Vale, which had just become vacant, and several men had to lie awake half the night listening to conjectures as to where she had got the money.

Most of the furniture at No. 5 was her own, and she moved it in piecemeal. Captain Sellers, who had his own ideas as to why she was coming to live next door to him, and was somewhat flattered in consequence, volunteered to a.s.sist, and, being debarred by deafness from learning that his services were refused, caused intense excitement by getting wedged under a dressing-table on the stairs.

To inquiries as to how he got there, the captain gave but brief replies, and those of an extremely sailorly description, the whole of his really remarkable powers being devoted for the time being to the question of how he was to get out. He was released at length by a man and a saw, and Mrs. Chinnery, as soon as she could speak, gave him a pressing invitation to take home with him any particular piece of the table for which he might have a fancy.

He was back next morning with a glue-pot, and divided his time between boiling it up on the kitchen stove and wandering about the house in search of things to stick. Its unaccountable disappearance during his absence in another room did much to mar the harmony of an otherwise perfect day. First of all he searched the house from top to bottom; then, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his features, he beckoned quietly to Mrs. Chinnery.

"I hadn't left it ten seconds," he said, mysteriously. "I went into the front room for a bit of stick, and when I went back it had gone-vanished. I was never more surprised in my life."

"Don't bother me," said Mrs. Chinnery. "I've got enough to do."

"Eh?"

Mrs. Chinnery, who was hot and fl.u.s.tered, shook her head at him.

"It's a very odd thing," said Captain Sellers, shaking his head. "I never lost a glue-pot before in my life-never. Do you know anything about that charwoman that's helping you?"

"Yes, of course," said Mrs. Chinnery.

The captain put his hand to his ear.

"Yes, of course."

"I don't like her expression," said Captain Sellers, firmly. "I'm a very good judge of faces, and there's a look, an artful look, about her eyes that I don't like. It's my belief she's got my glue-pot stowed about her somewhere; and I'm going to search her."

"You get out of my house," cried the overwrought Mrs. Chinnery.

"Not without my glue-pot," said Captain Sellers, hearing for once. "Take that woman upstairs and search her. A glue-pot-a hot glue-pot-can't go without hands."

Frail in body but indomitable in spirit he confronted the accused, who, having overheard his remarks, came in and shook her fist in his face and threatened him with the terrors of the law.

"A glue-pot can't go without hands," he said, obstinately. "If you had asked me for a little you could have had it, and welcome; but you had no business to take it."

"Take it!" vociferated the accused. "What good do you think it would be to me? I've 'ad eleven children and two husbands, and I've never been accused of stealing a glue-pot before. Where do you think I could put it?"

"I don't know." said the captain, as soon as he understood. "That's what I'm curious about. You go upstairs with Mrs. Chinnery, and if she don't find that you've got that glue-pot concealed on you, I shall be very much surprised. Why not own up the truth before you scald yourself?"

Instead of going upstairs the charwoman went to the back door and sat on the step to get her breath, and, giving way to a sense of humour which had survived the two husbands and eleven children, wound up with a strong fit of hysterics. Captain Sellers, who watched through the window as she was being taken away, said that perhaps it was his fault for putting temptation in her way.

Mrs. Chinnery tried to keep her door fast next morning, but it was of no use. The captain was in and out all day, and, having found a tin of green paint and a brush among his stores, required constant watching.

The day after Mrs. Chinnery saw her only means of escape, and at nine o'clock in the morning, with fair words and kind smiles, sent him into Salthaven for some picture-cord. He made four journeys that day. He came back from the last in a butcher's cart, and having handed Mrs. Chinnery the packet of hooks and eyes, for which he had taken a month's wear out of his right leg, bade her a hurried good-night and left for home on the arm of the butcher.

He spent the next day or two in an easy-chair by the fire, but the arrival of Mrs. Willett to complete the furnishing of No. 5 from her own surplus stock put him on his legs again. As an old neighbour and intimate friend of Mr. Truefitt's he proffered his services, and Mrs.

Willett, who had an old-fashioned belief in "man," accepted them. His one idea-the pot of paint being to him like a penny in a schoolboy's pocket-was to touch things up a bit; Mrs. Willett's idea was for him to help hang pictures and curtains.

"The steps are so rickety they are only fit for a man," she screamed in his ear. "Martha has been over with them twice already."

Captain Sellers again referred to the touching-up properties of green paint. Mrs. Willett took it from him, apparently for the purpose of inspection, and he at once set out in search of the glue-pot.

"We'll do the curtains downstairs first," she said to Martha. "Upstairs can wait."

The captain spent the morning on the steps, his difficulties being by no means lessened by the tremolo movement which Martha called steadying them. Twice he was nearly shaken from his perch like an over-ripe plum, but all went well until they were hanging the curtains in the best bed-room, when Martha, stooping to recover a dropped ring, shut the steps up like a pair of compa.s.ses.

The captain, who had hold of the curtains at the time, brought them down with him, and lay groaning on the floor. With the help of her mistress, who came hurrying up on hearing the fall, Martha got him on to the bed and sent for the doctor.

"How do you feel?" inquired Mrs. Willett, eying him anxiously.

"Bad," said the captain, closing his eyes. "Every bone in my body is broken, I believe. It feels like it."

Mrs. Willett shook her head and sought for words to rea.s.sure him. "Keep your spirits up," she said, encouragingly. "Don't forget that: 'There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft to look after the life of poor Jack.'"

Captain Sellers opened his eyes and regarded her fixedly. "He wouldn't ha' been sitting there long if that fool Martha had been holding the steps," he said, with extraordinary bitterness.

He closed his eyes again and refused to speak until the doctor came.

Then, having been stripped and put to bed for purposes of examination, he volunteered information as to his condition which twice caused the doctor to call him to order.

"You ought to be thankful it's no worse," he said, severely.