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I replied that as we were not going to Paris, we were not pressed for time; but this little outside happening broke the situation. "Better give this fellow your luggage ticket, Liosha," said Jaffery. She looked about her bewildered and then I noticed on the ground a leather satchel which she had been carrying. I picked it up. She extracted the ticket and we all went to the custom-house.
"Now where has it gone to?" Susan, who had shrunk beneath Jaffery's protecting shadow, crept forward fascinated. Mr. Fendihook took a sudden step or two towards a flower bed. "Why, there it is!" He stretched out a hand and there before our eyes the handkerchief hung limp over the pruned top of a standard rose. "Jolly good!" exclaimed Jaffery. "I hope you don't mind. I like amusing kiddies.
Why, my dear child, I want you to be prepared to come to Havre all over France, if necessary." "You've got rather a nerve," said I, taken aback by the vast coolness of the proposal. "I have," said he curtly. "I make my living by it." "I'd come like a shot," said Barbara, "but I can't leave Susan." "Oh, blazes!" said Jaffery. "I forgot about that. Of course you can't." He turned to me.
Jaffery, grinning with delight, opened the door, appeared to lift a radiant Barbara out of the car like a parcel and almost hugged her.
It was a question of credit, of course, but neither Mr. Jornicroft, solid man that he was, nor myself could have undertaken that journey with a few loose shillings in his possession. For the first time since Adrian's death I saw Jaffery really enjoying himself.
"Why didn't you tell me all this long ago?" asked Jaffery. "I tried to be good to please you you and Barbara and Hilary, who've been so kind to me." "It's all this infernal civilisation," he declared. "My dear girl, I'm as much fed up with it as you are; I want to go somewhere and wear beads." "So do I," said Liosha. I thought of Barbara's lecture on the whole duty of woman and I chuckled.
But all the same I fretted at having to start off at a moment's notice for anywhere perhaps Havre, perhaps Marseilles, perhaps Singapore with its horrible damp climate, which wouldn't suit me anywhere that tough and discomfort-loving Jaffery might choose to ordain. And I was getting on so nicely with my translation of Firdusi. . . .
"Whew!" said I, as we walked along the corridor. "What's going to happen?" "She'll marry him, of course." "She won't," said I. "She will. My dear Hilary, they always do." "If I have any knowledge of feminine character," said I, "that young woman harbours in her soul a bitter resentment against Jaffery." "If," she said. "But you haven't." "All right," said I. "All right," said Barbara.
Other sheets were covered with meaningless phrases, the crude drawings that the writing man makes mechanically while he is thinking over his work, and arabesques such as we found on the blotting pad. "What the blazes is all this?" muttered Jaffery, his fingers in his beard.
"Very well, thank you," smiled Liosha. He turned to Jaffery. "She's not up to her usual form to-day. But sometimes she's a fair treat! I give you my word." He laughed loudly and winked. Jaffery, whose agility in repartee was rather physical than mental, glowered at him, rumbled something unintelligible beneath his breath, and took tea out to Doria, who was established on the terrace.
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