The maid—her name, not that it matters, was Susan, and she was engaged to be married, though the point is of no importance, to the second assistant at Green’s Grocery Stores in Windlehurst—approached Mr. Bennett.
“Please, sir, a gentleman to see you.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Bennett, torn from a dream of large pink slices edged with bread-crumbed fat. “Eh?”
“A gentleman to see you, sir. In the drawing-room. He says you are expecting him.”
“Of course, yes. To be sure.”
Mr. Bennett heaved himself out of the deck-chair. Beyond the French windows he could see an indistinct form in a gray suit, and remembered that this was the morning on which Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s clerk—who was taking those Schultz and Bowen papers for him to America—had written that he would call. To-day was Friday; no doubt the man was sailing from Southampton to-morrow.
He crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room, and found Mr. Jno. Peters with an expression on his ill-favored face, which looked like one of consternation, of uneasiness, even of alarm.
“Morning, Mr. Peters,” said Mr. Bennett. “Very good of you to run down. Take a seat, and I’ll just go through the few notes I have made about the matter.”
“Mr. Bennett,” exclaimed Jno. Peters. “May—may I speak?”
“What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?”
Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at the unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a duty, and he did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since, gazing appreciatively through the drawing-room windows at the charming scene outside, he had caught sight of the unforgettable form of Billie, seated in her chair with the sketching-block on her knee, he had realised that he could not go away in silence, leaving Mr. Bennett ignorant of what he was up against.
One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some kind on this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it seemed to leave his peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been feeling notably happy during his journey in the train from London, and the subsequent walk from the station. The splendor of the morning had soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew inshore from the sea spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There was a jar of pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived considerable pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the pink, without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and seen Billie.
“Mr. Bennett,” he said, “I don’t want to do anybody any harm, and, if you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I think it is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in the head. I don’t say she’s dangerous, but she isn’t compos. She decidedly is not compos, Mr. Bennett!”
Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought crossed his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters’ sanity went down to zero.
“What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?”
It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other’s wealth and business connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He particularised.
“I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee.”
“What! What!” Mr. Bennett spluttered. “Do you know who that is?” he exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, indeed!” said Jno. Peters. “I have only met her once, when she came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am not mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened when I was left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a dozen words, Mr. Bennett, when—” here Jno. Peters, modest to the core, turned vividly pink, “when she told me—she told me that I was the only man she loved!”