"Great Scott!" Matthias exclaimed, pulling his wits together. "You are a sudden pair of people!" With a shrug and a sour smile he deprecated his clothing, which consisted solely of a shirt, linen trousers, and a pair of antiquated slippers. "If you'd only given me some warning, I'd've tried to dress up to your elegance," he went on.
"Damn your clothes!" Tankerville exploded. He dropped a hand on Matthias's shoulder and swung him round to the light. "Tell us you're all right--that's all we want to know!"
"All right?" Matthias looked from one to the other, deeply perplexed. "Why, of course I'm all right. Why not?"
With a little gasp of relief, Helena dropped into a chair. Tankerville removed his hand and leaned against the table, smiling foolishly.
"That's all right, then," he said. "We tried to get you on the telephone all afternoon, failed, were afraid you'd done something foolish, and took a run in to town to make sure."
"What the dickens are you driving at?" Matthias demanded. "I had my telephone cut off the other day because I was working and didn't want to be interrupted. I do that frequently. Why not? What's got into you two, anyway? Have you gone dotty?"
"No," Helena replied with a grim, pale smile; "We're sane enough--and thank Heaven you are! But Venetia--"
"Venetia!" Matthias cried. "What about Venetia?"
Tankerville avoiding his eye, it devolved upon Helena to respond to Matthias's frantic and imperative look.
"Venetia," she said reluctantly--"Venetia eloped with Marbridge day before yesterday--Tuesday. She came in town in the morning to do some shopping, met him and was married to him at the City Hall. They sailed on the Mauretania yesterday. The papers didn't get hold of it--_we_ knew nothing!--till this afternoon. I was afraid she might have written you and you--in despair--"
After a little, Matthias turned to a heap of unopened correspondence on a side table and ran rapidly through it, examining only the addresses.
"No," he said presently, in a level tone: "no--she didn't trouble to write me."
For several days the girl had haunted the stairs, the hall, and door-step, alert to waylay Matthias, before suddenly she became aware that it was long since she had either caught a glimpse of him or heard the syncopated murmuring of the typewriter behind the closed door to his back-parlour.