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"It's a world of coincidences," said Denry, with emphasis. "You don't mean to insinuate," said Mrs Clutterbuck, with a nervous laugh, "that Captain Deverax has er gone after the Countess?" "Oh no!" said Denry, with unction. "Such a thought never entered my head." "I think you're a very strange man, Mr Machin," retorted Mrs Clutterbuck, hostile and not a bit reassured.
But the house seems to be all ready for him...." "Yes, my word! And how's yourself, Mrs Cotterill?" put in Mrs Machin. "So we may as well look over it in its finished state. I suppose that's what he asked us up for," Denry concluded. Mrs Machin explained quickly and nervously that she had not been comprised in any invitation; that her errand was pure business.
You'd better come round to the other side for the right foot, Mr. Bootmaker. The journey is simply nothing." And then, and not till then, did Sir John Pilgrim turn his large and handsome middle-aged blond face in the direction of Alderman Edward Henry Machin. "Pardon my curiosity," said Sir John, "but who are you?" "My name is Machin Alderman Machin," said Edward Henry.
Denry replied, from a sofa, in a weak, expiring voice, that he was perfectly incapable of walking home, that his sensations were in the highest degree disconcerting, that he should sleep in that house, as the bedrooms were ready for occupation, and that he should expect his mother to remain also. And Mrs Machin had to concur.
"I think they've only just done the first act," the woman breathed. "I know they didn't begin till seven. Oh! Mr. Machin, of course it's no affair of mine, but I've worked in a good many theatres, and I do think it's such a mistake to have the dress-rehearsal quite private.
He considered her much less effective here than in her box. But her febrile gaze was effective enough to produce in him the needle-stab again, the feeling of gloom, of pessimism, of being gradually overtaken by an unseen and mysterious avenger. "Yes, indeed!" said he. He thought to himself: "Now's the time for me to behave like Edward Henry Machin, and teach these people a thing or two!"
His secretary was just like a new toy to him, offering many of the advantages of official life and routine without any of the drawbacks. At half past eleven he descended, wearing one or two of the more discreet of his new possessions, and with the sensation of having already transacted a good day's work, into the breakfast-room and found Miss Warburton and Machin in converse.
Machin seemed to hesitate, her mind disturbed. "Where is she?" "I was just coming to tell you, sir. She told me to say that she was lying down." "Oh!" Disdaining further to interrogate the servant, he hurried upstairs.
Of its strange escapade Denry had been the sole witness. "Well, I'm dashed!" he murmured aloud. And a voice replied from the belly of the pantechnicon: "Who is there?" All Denry's body shook. "It's me!" said he. "Not Mr Machin?" said the voice. "Yes," said he. "I jumped on as it came down the street and here we are!" "Oh!" cried the voice. "I do wish you could get round to me." Ruth Earp's voice.
He stood a moment in the hall and was in a mind to ring for Machin he could see from a vague illumination at the entrance to the basement steps that the kitchen was still inhabited but just then all the servants came upwards on the way to the attics, and at the strange spectacle of their dancing master in the hall they all grew constrained and either coughed or hurried as though they ought not to be caught in the act of retiring to bed.
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