I returned to the waiting-room, not forgetting of course to close the door of communication.
Nearly an hour must have passed before I heard footsteps in the passage. The study door was opened, and the voices of persons entering the room reached me through the ventilator. I recognized Romayne, Penrose--and Lord Loring.
The first words exchanged among them informed me that Romayne and his secretary had overtaken Lord Loring in the street, as he was approaching the hotel door. The three had entered the house together--at a time, probably, when the servant who had admitted me was out of the way. However it may have happened, there I was, forgotten in the waiting-room!
Could I intrude myself (on a private conversation perhaps) as an unannounced and unwelcome visitor? And could I help it, if the talk found its way to me through the ventilator, along with the air that I breathed? If our Reverend Fathers think I was to blame, I bow to any reproof which their strict sense of propriety may inflict on me. In the meantime, I beg to repeat the interesting passages in the conversation, as nearly word for word as I can remember them.
His lordship, as the principal personage in social rank, shall be reported first. He said: “More than a week has passed, Romayne, and we have neither seen you nor heard from you. Why have you neglected us?”
Here, judging by certain sounds that followed, Penrose got up discreetly, and left the room. Lord Loring went on.
He said to Romayne: “Now we are alone, I may speak to you more freely. You and Stella seemed to get on together admirably that evening when you dined with us. Have you forgotten what you told me of her influence over you? Or have you altered your opinion--and is that the reason why you keep away from us?”
Romayne answered: “My opinion remains unchanged. All that I said to you of Miss Eyrecourt, I believe as firmly as ever.”
His lordship remonstrated, naturally enough. “Then why remain away from the good influence? Why--if it really _can_ be controlled--risk another return of that dreadful nervous delusion?”
“Which, as you yourself believe, might have been prevented! Romayne, you astonish me.”
There was a time of silence, before Romayne answered this. He was a little mysterious when he did reply. “You know the old saying, my good friend--of two evils, choose the least. I bear my sufferings as one of two evils, and the least of the two.”