"And what do you intend to do with yourself?" asked Lady Cantourne
when she had poured out tea. "You surely do not intend to mope in
that dismal house in Russell Square?"
"No, I shall let it if I can."
"Oh, you will have no difficulty in doing that. People live in
Russell Square again now, and try to make one believe that it is a
fashionable quarter. Your father stayed on there because the
carpets fitted the rooms, and on account of other ancestral
conveniences. He did not live there--he knew nothing of his
immediate environments. He lived in Phoenicia."
"Then," continued Guy Oscard, "I shall go abroad."
"Ah! Will you have a second cup? Why will you go abroad?"
Guy Oscard paused for a moment. "I know an old hippopotamus in a
certain African river who has twice upset me. I want to go back and
shoot him."
"Don't go at once; that would be running away from it--not from the
hippopotamus--from the inquest. It does not matter being upset in
an African river; but you must not be upset in London by--an
inquest."
"I did not propose going at once," replied Guy Oscard, with a
peculiar smile which Lady Cantourne thought she understood. "It
will take me some time to set my affairs in order--the will, and all
that."
Lady Cantourne waited with perfectly suppressed curiosity, and while
she was waiting Millicent Chyne came into the room.
Pages:
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53