From the hall outside came faintly the sound of the telephone,
then the measured tones of Bayliss answering it. Mr. Crocker
returned to his paper.
Bayliss entered.
"Lady Corstorphine desires to speak to you on the telephone,
madam."
Half-way to the door Mrs. Crocker paused, as if recalling
something that had slipped her memory.
"Is Mr. James getting up, Bayliss?"
"I believe not, madam. I am informed by one of the house-maids
who passed his door a short time back that there were no sounds."
Mrs. Crocker left the room. Bayliss, preparing to follow her
example, was arrested by an exclamation from the table.
"Say!"
His master's voice.
"Say, Bayliss, come here a minute. Want to ask you something."
The butler approached the table. It seemed to him that his
employer was not looking quite himself this morning. There was
something a trifle wild, a little haggard, about his expression.
He had remarked on it earlier in the morning in the Servants'
Hall.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Crocker's ailment was a perfectly simple
one. He was suffering from one of those acute spasms of
home-sickness, which invariably racked him in the earlier Summer
months. Ever since his marriage five years previously and his
simultaneous removal from his native land he had been a chronic
victim to the complaint. The symptoms grew less acute in Winter
and Spring, but from May onward he suffered severely.
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