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Stanistreet stared vaguely at his host. "Yes; you must see me through this, Stanny. I can't trust myself by myself. For God's sake let's go and do something, or I'll go off my head." They spent the afternoon in the low coverts about the Toft, and the evening in the billiard-room, sitting forlornly over whiskey-and-soda. A peculiar throbbing silence and mystery seemed to hang about the house.
Henry, watching their departure, missed an easy serve, and endured the reproaches of his partner. "Rutley, I want the key of the billiard-room. Rutley, get it at once." "I think I know where it was put last," said the butler. They went up the steps, and waited until Rutley came. Jim Langham called him a slow-coach, a tortoise, a stick-in-the-mud, and a few other names.
He urged Paulina to leave Paris for London; and he himself selected the lonely villa on the banks of the Thames, in which he found a billiard-room, lighted from the roof, that was easily converted into a secret chamber.
The room seemed to him intolerably uncomfortable and ugly, and he went to the billiard-room to smoke a cigar. It was not clear to him that he would be able to spend two months in Thornby Place. If every evening passed like the present, it were a modern martyrdom.... But had they removed the feather-bed? He went upstairs. The feather-bed had been removed.
Barrymore asked leave to speak with Sir Henry, and they were closeted in his study some little time. Sitting in the billiard-room I more than once heard the sound of voices raised, and I had a pretty good idea what the point was which was under discussion. After a time the baronet opened his door and called for me. "Barrymore considers that he has a grievance," he said.
Upon this, on Lord Chelford's motion, in our forlorn condition, we went to the billiard-room, and there, under the bright lights, and the gay influence of that wonderful game, we forgot our cares, and became excellent friends apparently 'cuts, 'canons, 'screws, 'misses, 'flukes' Lord Chelford joked, Wylder 'chaffed, even Lake seemed to enjoy himself; and the game proceeded with animation and no lack of laughter, beguiling the watches of the night; and we were all amazed, at length, to find how very late it was.
I never knew a man enter a billiard-room that he wasn't lost for ever. There was my uncle Wardle; a better man never broke the bread of life: he took to billiards, and he didn't live with aunt a month afterwards. "And that's what you call a man who leaves his wife a 'lucky fellow'? But, to be sure, what can I expect?
And now there remained one other thing to do. He dropped into the billiard-room and commenced playing, occasionally going to a window that commanded the river. When, after a game or two, he saw a man approaching from Shanty Town, he put up his cue, sauntered opportunely out, and met the interpreter. "Well, Matthews," was his greeting. "Well?"
Then I walked round to see that all was right before I went upstairs. It was my custom to do this myself, for, as I have explained, Sir Eustace was not always to be trusted. I went into the kitchen, the butler's pantry, the gun-room, the billiard-room, the drawing-room, and finally the dining-room.
If he could do this without ruining them, he would be glad, and his good-will was enhanced by Graydon's course this morning. The former had sauntered into the billiard-room, but, seeing Graydon with Miss Wildmere, had been about to depart, when Muir had said, cordially, "Come, Arnault, take a cue with us," and had quite disarmed him by frank courtesy.
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