How right events had proved
this instinctive feeling. Mrs. Pett was not vulgar enough to
describe the feeling, even to herself, as a hunch, but a hunch it
had been; and, like every one whose hunches have proved correct,
she was conscious in the midst of her grief of a certain
complacency. It seemed to her that hers must be an intelligence
and insight above the ordinary.
The peace of the early afternoon settled upon the drawing-room.
Mrs. Pett had taken up a book; Ogden, on the settee, breathed
stentorously. Faint snores proceeded from the basket in the
corner where Aida, the Pomeranian, lay curled in refreshing
sleep. Through the open window floated sounds of warmth and
Summer.
Yielding to the drowsy calm, Mrs. Pett was just nodding into a
pleasant nap, when the door opened and Lord Wisbeach came in.
Lord Wisbeach had been doing some rapid thinking. Rapid thought
is one of the essentials in the composition of men who are known
as Gentleman Jack to the boys and whose livelihood is won only by
a series of arduous struggles against the forces of Society and
the machinations of Potter and his gang. Condensed into capsule
form, his lordship's meditations during the minutes after he had
left Jimmy in the dining-room amounted to the realisation that
the best mode of defence is attack. It is your man who knows how
to play the bold game on occasion who wins. A duller schemer than
Lord Wisbeach might have been content to be inactive after such a
conversation as had just taken place between himself and Jimmy.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213