Bill was in bed when the bell rang, and received his late host in his pyjamas, wondering, as he did so, whether this was the New York custom, to foregather again after a party had been broken up, and chat till breakfast. But Nutty, it seemed, had come with a motive, not from a desire for more conversation.
‘Sorry to disturb you, old man,’ said Nutty. ‘I looked in to tell you that I was going down to the country to-morrow. I wondered whether you would care to come and spend a day or two with us.’
Bill was delighted. This was better than he had hoped for.
‘Rather!’ he said. ‘Thanks awfully!’
‘There are plenty of trains in the afternoon,’ said Nutty. ‘I don’t suppose either of us will feel like getting up early. I’ll call for you here at half-past six, and we’ll have an early dinner and catch the seven-fifteen, shall we? We live very simply, you know. You won’t mind that?’
‘My dear chap!’
‘That’s all right, then,’ said Nutty, closing the door. ‘Good night.’
9
Elizabeth entered Nutty’s room and, seating herself on the bed, surveyed him with a bright, quiet eye that drilled holes in her brother’s uneasy conscience. This was her second visit to him that morning. She had come an hour ago, bearing breakfast on a tray, and had departed without saying a word. It was this uncanny silence of hers even more than the effects–which still lingered–of his revels in the metropolis that had interfered with Nutty’s enjoyment of the morning meal. Never a hearty breakfaster, he had found himself under the influence of her wordless disapproval physically unable to consume the fried egg that confronted him. He had given it one look; then, endorsing the opinion which he had once heard a character in a play utter in somewhat similar circumstances–that there was nothing on earth so homely as an egg–he had covered it with a handkerchief and tried to pull himself round with hot tea. He was now smoking a sad cigarette and waiting for the blow to fall.
Her silence had puzzled him. Though he had tried to give her no opportunity of getting him alone on the previous evening when he had arrived at the farm with Lord Dawlish, he had fully expected that she would have broken in upon him with abuse and recrimination in the middle of the night. Yet she had not done this, nor had she spoken to him when bringing him his breakfast. These things found their explanation in Elizabeth’s character, with which Nutty, though he had known her so long, was but imperfectly acquainted. Elizabeth had never been angrier with her brother, but an innate goodness of heart had prevented her falling upon him before he had had rest and refreshment.
She wanted to massacre him, but at the same time she told herself that the poor dear must be feeling very, very ill, and should have a reasonable respite before the slaughter commenced.
It was plain that in her opinion this respite had now lasted long enough. She looked over her shoulder to make sure that she had closed the door, then leaned a little forward and spoke.
‘Now, Nutty!’
The wretched youth attempted bluster.
‘What do you mean–“Now, Nutty”? What’s the use of looking at a fellow like that and saying “Now, Nutty”? Where’s the sense–‘
His voice trailed off. He was not a very intelligent young man, but even he could see that his was not a position where righteous indignation could be assumed with any solid chance of success. As a substitute he tried pathos.
‘Oo-oo, my head does ache!’
‘I wish it would burst,’ said his sister, unkindly.
‘That’s a nice thing to say to a fellow!’
‘I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have said it–‘
‘Oh, well!’
‘Only I couldn’t think of anything worse.’
It began to seem to Nutty that pathos was a bit of a failure too. As a last resort he fell back on silence. He wriggled as far down as he could beneath the sheets and breathed in a soft and wounded sort of way. Elizabeth took up the conversation.
‘Nutty,’ she said, ‘I’ve struggled for years against the conviction that you were a perfect idiot. I’ve forced myself, against my better judgement, to try to look on you as sane, but now I give in. I can’t believe you are responsible for your actions. Don’t imagine that I am going to heap you with reproaches because you sneaked off to New York. I’m not even going to tell you what I thought of you for not sending me a telegram, letting me know where you were. I can understand all that. You were disappointed because Uncle Ira had not left you his money, and I suppose that was your way of working it off. If you had just run away and come back again with a headache, I’d have treated you like the Prodigal Son. But there are some things which are too much, and bringing a perfect stranger back with you for an indefinite period is one of them. I’m not saying anything against Mr Chalmers personally. I haven’t had time to find out much about him, except that he’s an Englishman; but he looks respectable. Which, as he’s a friend of yours, is more or less of a miracle.’