Should he have permitted her to enter Ferrara's rooms?
He reflected that he had no right to question her movements. But, at least, he might have accompanied her.
"Oh, heavens!" he muttered--"what a horrible tangle. It will drive me mad!"
There could be no peace for him until he knew her to be safely home again, and his work suffered accordingly; until, at about midday, he rang up Myra Duquesne, on the pretence of accepting her invitation to lunch on the morrow, and heard, with inexpressible relief, her voice replying to him.
In the afternoon he was suddenly called upon to do a big "royal" matinée, and this necessitated a run to his chambers in order to change from Harris tweed into vicuna and cashmere. The usual stream of lawyers' clerks and others poured under the archway leading to the court; but in the far corner shaded by the tall plane tree, where the ascending steps and worn iron railing, the small panes of glass in the solicitor's window on the ground floor and the general air of Dickens-like aloofness prevailed, one entered a sort of backwater. In the narrow hall-way, quiet reigned--a quiet profound as though motor 'buses were not.
Cairn ran up the stairs to the second landing, and began to fumble for his key. Although he knew it to be impossible, he was aware of a queer impression that someone was waiting for him, inside his chambers. The sufficiently palpable fact--that such a thing _was_ impossible--did not really strike him until he had opened the door and entered. Up to that time, in a sort of subconscious way, he had anticipated finding a visitor there.
"What an ass I am!" he muttered; then, "Phew! there's a disgusting smell!"
He threw open all the windows, and entering his bedroom, also opening both the windows there. The current of air thus established began to disperse the odour--a fusty one as of something decaying--and by the time that he had changed, it was scarcely perceptible. He had little time to waste in speculation, but when, as he ran out to the door, glancing at his watch, the nauseous odour suddenly rose again to his nostrils, he stopped with his hand on the latch.
Quite mechanically he turned and looked back. As one might have anticipated, there was nothing visible to account for the odour.