第152章

John Eames sat at his office on the day after his return to London, and answered the various letters which he had found waiting for him at his lodgings on the previous evening. To Miss Demolines he had already written from his club, a single line, which he considered to be appropriate to the mysterious necessities of the occasion. 'I will be with you at a quarter to six tomorrow.--J E. Just returned.' There was not another word; and as he scrawled it at one of the club tables while two or three other men were talking to him, he felt rather proud of his correspondence. 'It was capital fun,' he said; 'and after all'--the 'all' on this occasion being Lily Dale, and the sadness of his disappointment at Allington--'after all, let a fellow be ever so down in the mouth, a little amusement should do him good.' And he reflected further that the more a fellow be 'down in the mouth', the more good the amusement would do him. He sent off his note, therefore, with some little inward rejoicing--and a word of two also of spoken rejoicing.

'What fun women are sometimes,' he said to one of his friends--a friend with whom he was very intimate, calling him always Fred, and slapping his back, but whom he never by any chance saw out of his club.

'What up to now, Johnny? Some good fortune?'

'Good fortune, no. I never saw good fortune of that kind. But I've got hold of a young woman--or rather a young woman has got hold of me, who insists on having mystery with me. In the mystery itself there is not the slightest interest. But the mysteriousness of it is charming. I have just written to her three words to settle an appointment for tomorrow.

We don't sign our names lest the Postmaster General should find out about it.'

'Is she pretty?'

'Well;--she isn't ugly. She has just enough of good looks to make the sort of thing pass off pleasantly. A mystery with a downright ugly young woman would be unpleasant.'

After this fashion the note from Miss Demolines had been received, and answered at once, but the other letters remained in his pocket till he reached his office on the following morning. Sir Raffle had begged him to be there at half-past nine. This he had sworn he would not do; but he did seat himself in his room at ten minutes before ten, finding of course the whole building untenanted at that early hour--that unearthly hour, as Johnny called it himself. 'I shouldn't wonder if he really is here this morning,' Johnny said, as he entered the building, 'just that he may have the opportunity of jumping on me.' But Sir Raffle was not there, and then Johnny began to abuse Sir Raffle. 'If I ever come here early to meet him again, because he says he means to be here himself, Ihope I may be--blessed.' On that especial morning it was twelve before Sir Raffle made his appearance, and Johnny avenged himself--I regret to have to tell it--by a fib. That Sir Raffle fibbed first, was no valid excuse whatever for Eames.

'I've been at it ever since six o'clock,' said Sir Raffle.

'At what?' said John.

'Work, to be sure;--and very hard work too. I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks that he can call upon me to any extent that he pleases;--just any extent that he pleases. He doesn't give me credit for a desire to have a single hour to myself.'

'What would he do, Sir Raffle, if you were to get ill, or wear yourself out?'

'He knows I'm not one of the wearing-out sort of men. You got my note last night?'

'Yes; I got your note.'

'I'm sorry that I troubled you; but I couldn't help it. I didn't expect to get a box full of papers at eleven o'clock last night.'

'You didn't put me out, Sir Raffle; I happened to have business of my own which prevented the possibility of my being here early.'

This was the way in which John Eames avenged himself. Sir Raffle turned his face upon his private secretary, and his face was very black. Johnny bore the gaze without dropping an eyelid. 'I'm not going to stand it, and he may as well know that at once,' Johnny said to one of his friends in the office afterwards. 'If he ever wants anything really done, I'll do it;--though it should take me twelve hours at a stretch. But I'm not going to pretend to believe all the lies he tells me about the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If that is to be part of the private secretary's business, he had better get somebody else.' But now Sir Raffle was very angry, and his countenance was full of wrath as he looked down upon his subordinate minister. 'If I had come here, Mr Eames, and had found you absent, I should have been very much annoyed, very much annoyed indeed, after having written as I did.'

'You would have found me absent at the hour you named. As I wasn't there then, I think it's only fair to say so.'

'I'm afraid you begrudge your time to the service, Mr Eames.'

'I do begrudge it when the service doesn't want it.'

'At your age, Mr Eames, that's not for you to judge. If I had acted in that way when I was young I should never have filled the position I now hold. I always remembered in those days that as I was the hand and not the head, I was bound to hold myself in readiness whether work might be required of me or not.'

'If I'm wanted as hand now, Sir Raffle, I'm ready.'

'That's all very well;--but why were you not here at the hour I named?'

'Well, Sir Raffle, I cannot say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer detained me;--but there was business. As I've been here for the last two hours, I am happy to think that in this instance the public service will not have suffered by my disobedience.'