“What did you say to him?”
“One of these days you’ll come the very devil of a cropper.”
“You showed wisdom and emphasis. I hope with all my heart, he will.”
“I don’t imagine things are going very smoothly,” proceeded Frank. “Reggie tells me she leads him a deuce of a life, and he’s growing restive; it appears to be no joke to have a woman desperately in love with you. And then he’s never been on such familiar terms with a person of quality, and he’s shocked by her vulgarity; her behaviour seems often to outrage his sense of decorum.”
“Isn’t that like an Englishman! He cultivates propriety even in the immoral.”
Then Miss Ley asked Frank about himself, but they had corresponded with diligence, and he had little to tell; the work at Saint Luke’s went on monotonously, lectures to students three times a week and out-patients on Wednesday and Saturday; people were beginning to come to his consulting-room in Harley Street, and he looked forward, without great enthusiasm, to the future of a fashionable physician.
“And are you in love?”
“You know I shall never permit my affections to wander so long as you remain single,” he answered, laughing.
“Beware I don’t take you at your word and drag you by the hair of your head to the altar. Have I no rival?”
“Well, if you press me, I will confess.”
“Monster! what is her name?”
“Bilharzia Holmatobi.”
“Good heavens!”
“It’s a parasite I’m studying. I think authorities are all wrong about it; they’ve not got its life-history right, and the stuff they believe about the way people catch it is sheer footle.”
“It doesn’t sound frightfully thrilling to me, and I’m under the impression you’re only trumping it up to conceal some scandalous amour with a ballet-girl.”
Miss Ley’s visit to Barnes seemed welcome neither to Jenny nor to Basil, who looked harassed and unhappy, and only with a visible effort assumed a cheerful manner when he addressed his wife. Jenny was still in bed, very weak and ill, but Miss Ley, who had never before seen her, was surprised at her great beauty; her face, whiter than the pillows against which it rested, had a very touching pathos, and, notwithstanding all that had gone before, that winsome, innocent sweetness which has occasioned the comparison of English maidens to the English rose. The observant woman noticed also the painful, questioning anxiety with which Jenny continually glanced at her husband, as though pitifully dreading some unmerited reproach.
“I hope you like my wife,” said Basil, when he accompanied Miss Ley downstairs.
“Poor thing! She seems to me like a lovely bird imprisoned by fate within the four walls of practical life, who should by rights sing careless songs under the open skies. I’m afraid you’ll be very unkind to her.”
“Why?” he asked, not without resentment.
“My dear, you’ll make her live up to your blue china teapot. The world might be so much happier if people wouldn’t insist on acting up to their principles.”
Mrs. Bush had been hurriedly sent for when Jenny’s condition seemed dangerous, but, in her distress and excitement, she had sought solace in Basil’s whiskey-bottle to such an extent that he was obliged to beg her to return to her own home. The scene was not edifying. Surmising an alcoholic tendency, Kent, two or three days after her arrival, locked the side-board and removed the key. But in a little while the servant came to him.
“If you please, sir, Mrs. Bush says, can she ’ave the whiskey; she’s not feelin’ very well.”
“I’ll go to her.”
Mrs. Bush sat in the dining-room with folded hands, doing her utmost to express on a healthy countenance maternal anxiety, indisposition, and ruffled dignity; she was not vastly pleased to see her son-in-law instead of the expected maid.
“Oh, is that you, Basil?” she said; “I can’t find the sideboard key anywhere, and I’m that upset I must ’ave a little drop of something.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you, Mrs. Bush. You’re much better without it.”
“Oh, indeed!” she answered, bristling. “P’raps you know more about me inside feelings than I do myself. I’ll just trouble you to give me the key, young man, and look sharp about it. I’m not a woman to be put upon by any one, and I tell you straight.”
“I’m very sorry, but I think you’ve had quite enough to drink. Jenny may want you, and you would be wise to keep sober.”
“D’you mean to insinuate that I’ve ’ad more than I can carry?”
“I wouldn’t go quite so far as that,” he answered, smiling.
“Thank you for nothing,” cried Mrs. Bush indignantly. “And I should be obliged if you wouldn’t laugh at me, and I must say it’s very ’eartless with me daughter lying ill in her bedroom. I’m very much upset and I did think you’d treat me like a lady, but you never ’ave, Mr. Kent—no, not even the first time I come here. Oh, I ’aven’t forgot, so don’t you think I ’ave—a sixpenny ’alfpenny teapot was good enough for me, but when your lady-friend come in out pops the silver, and I don’t believe for a moment it’s real silver. Blood’s all very well, Mr. Kent, but what I say is, give me manners. You’re a nice young feller, you are, to grudge me a little drop of spirits when me poor daughter’s on her death-bed. I wouldn’t stay another minute in this ’ouse if it wasn’t for ‘er.”
“I was going to suggest it would be better if you returned to your happy home in Crouch End,” answered Basil, when the good woman stopped to take breath.
“Were you, indeed! Well, we’ll just see what Jenny ’as to say to that. I suppose my daughter is mistress in ’er own ’ouse.”
Mrs. Bush started to her feet and made for the door, but Basil stood with his back against it.
“I can’t allow you to go to her now. I don’t think you’re in a fit state.”
“D’you think I’m going to let you prevent me? Get out of my way, young man.”
Basil, more disgusted than out of temper, looked at the angry creature with a cold scorn which was not easy to stomach.
“I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Bush, but I think you’d better leave this house at once. Fanny will put your things together. I’m going to Jenny’s room, and I forbid you to come to it. I expect you to be gone in half an hour.”
He turned on his heel, leaving Mrs. Bush furious but intimidated. She was so used to have her own way that opposition took her aback, and Basil’s manner did not suggest that he would easily suffer contradiction. But she made up her mind, whatever the consequences, to force her way into Jenny’s room, and there set out her grievance. She had not done repeating to herself what she would say when the servant entered to state that, according to her master’s order, she had packed Mrs. Bush’s things. Jenny’s mother started up indignantly, but pride forbade her to let the maid see she was turned out.
“Quite right, Fanny! This isn’t the ’ouse that a lady would stay in, and I pity