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In some great houses, I knew, it was possible to stay without any one knowing you had been there. But the Duchess of Hertfordshire hid her light under no bushel. Exclusive she was, but not of publicity. Next to Windsor Castle, Keeb Hall was the most advertised house in all England. 'Meanwhile, I had plenty to do. I rather thought of engaging a valet, but decided that this wasn't necessary.
Maltby at Keeb. I caught the Duchess' eye once or twice, and she nodded encouragingly, as who should say "You do look rather awful, and you do seem rather out of it, but I don't for a moment regret having asked you to come." Presently I had another chance of talking. I heard myself talk. My feverish anxiety to please rather touched ME. But I noticed that the eyes of my listener wandered.
I assured myself that I had not seen what I had seemed to see. All very odd, of course, and very unpleasant, but easily explained. Nerves. Excitement of coming to Keeb too much for me. A good night's rest: that was all I needed. To-morrow I should laugh at myself. 'I wondered that I wasn't tired physically.
Her innate good-sense quickly reasserted itself. She used her great power. With a wave of her magic wand she turned into a fact the glittering possibility that had haunted me. She asked me down to Keeb. 'She seemed very pleased that I would come. Was I, by any chance, free on Saturday week? She hoped there would be some amusing people to meet me. Could I come by the 3.30?
"Vot vos dot?" roared Hans, also sitting up, and glaring at the Vermonter. "You don'd peen pig enough to bound der sduffin oudt uf nottings!" "Wal, dern my skin ef I don't show you! Ef I'm mortally shot, it'll be some satisfaction to die thumpin' you, by gum!" "Keeb avay off!" squawked Hans, as Ephraim began to crawl toward him.
On the way to Victoria my brain worked and my soul wilted. Every incident in my stay at Keeb stood out clear to me; a dreadful, a hideous pattern. I had done for myself, so far as THOSE people were concerned. And now that I had sampled THEM, what cared I for others? "Too low for a hawk, too high for a buzzard." That homely old saying seemed to sum me up.
"We must find out more about that place," said the Emîr with a great yawn as he rose and stretched himself. "We must make inquiries. Other people must at least have heard of it. "Oh, sir, I beg you not!" the son of Yâcûb cried in sudden terror. "You bromised faithfully to keeb my secret!" "Of course, you stupid!" came the laughing assurance. "We can make inquiries without telling any one."
"Yessir," he replied; and his toneless voice touched in me one or two springs of memory: I was at Keeb; this was the footman who looked after me. But why wasn't I in bed? Had I no, surely it had been no nightmare. Surely I had SEEN Braxton on that white bed. 'The footman was impassively putting away my smoking-suit. I was too dazed to wonder what he thought of me.
Statecraft and Diplomacy were well threaded there with mere Lineage and mere Beauty, with Royalty sometimes, with mere Wealth never, with privileged Genius now and then. A noble composition always. It was said that the Duke of Hertfordshire cared for nothing but his collection of birds' eggs, and that the collections of guests at Keeb were formed entirely by his young Duchess.
Might not 'Henry Chaplin' be a typographical error for 'Stephen Braxton'? I went out and bought another newspaper. But Mr. Chaplin's name was in that too. 'Patience! I said to myself. 'Braxton crouches only to spring. He will be at Keeb Hall on Saturday next. My mind was free now to dwell with pleasure on Maltby's great achievement.
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