"That ought not to be necessary," said Fearns, as an expert father.
Ada departed, thankful to be finished with the ordeal of cross-examination in a full drawing-room.
"Don’t you know anything about him?" Hilda addressed Johnnie Orgreave suddenly.
"Me? About your precious? No. Why should I know?"
"Because you’re getting such friends, you two."
"Oh! Are we?" Johnnie said carelessly. Nevertheless he was flattered by a certain nascent admiration on the part of George, which was then beginning to be noticeable.
A quarter of an hour later, when several guests had gone, Hilda murmured to Edwin:
"I’m not easy about that boy. I’ll just run upstairs."
But she did. And the distant sound of knocking, and "George, George," could be heard even down in the hall.
"I can’t wake him," said Hilda, back in the drawing-room.
"What do you want to wake him for, foolish girl?" Edwin demanded.
She enjoyed being called "foolish girl," but she was not to be tranquillised.
"Do you think he is in bed?" she questioned, before the whole remaining company, and the dread suspicion was out!
After more journeys upstairs, and more bangings, and essays with keys, and even attempts at lock-picking, Hilda announced that George’s room must be besieged from its window. A ladder was found, and interested visitors went into the back-entry, by the kitchen, to see it reared and hear the result. Edwin thought that the cook in the kitchen looked as guilty as he himself felt, though she more than once asseverated her belief that Master George was safely in bed. The ladder was too short. Edwin mounted it, and tried to prise himself on to the window-sill, but could not.
Ingpen easily succeeded. He glanced through the open window into George’s bedroom, and then looked down at the upturned faces, and Ada’s apron, whitely visible in the gloom.
"He deserves to be wakened," she laughed.
"You see what a foolish girl you’ve been," said Edwin affectionately.
"Never mind!" she retorted. "_You_ couldn’t get on the window. And you were just as upset as anybody. Do you think I don’t know? Thank you, Mr. Ingpen."
"Is he really there?" Edwin whispered to Ingpen as soon as he could.
"I wonder how the deuce he slipped in. I’ll bet anything those servants have been telling a lot of lies for him. He pulls their hair down and simply does what he likes with them."