At the same hour Mrs. Luttrell sat before the fire in the great empty drawing–room, from which the guests had just departed. Mrs. Luttrell was burning with curiosity to know what had become of Baskerville and Anne Clavering when they disappeared so mysteriously—for Baskerville had not returned, either. The fact is, while Anne was lost in a soft ecstasy, Baskerville, smoking furiously at a big black cigar, was walking aimlessly about the streets, his heart beating high. He looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock, and it occurred to him that it was time to go back to Mrs. Luttrell and make provision for future meetings with Anne Clavering and, possibly, their marriage from Mrs. Luttrell’s house, if circumstances should follow as he expected.
When he walked in, Mrs. Luttrell’s greeting was, “Where’s Anne Clavering?”
“Safe at home, I trust,” replied Baskerville, throwing the end of his cigar into the fire.
“And what became of you, pray, when you two went prancing off, and never came back?”
“I took Miss Clavering into the morning–room.”
“I decline to state, except that Miss Clavering and I are to be married—perhaps in this house. Senator Clavering, you know, and I are at feud, and the coming revelations about him make it very likely that he won’t have a house here very long”—Baskerville had in mind Clavering’s divorce—“and our meetings, Miss Clavering’s and mine, are to take place under your roof, with yourself to play gooseberry. Even if you are due at the biggest dinner going at the house of the smartest of the smart and the newest of the new, you shall stay here, if we have to chain you up.”
“And you are not to open your mouth to a living being about what I am telling you, until I give you permission. I know your idea of a secret, Sara Luttrell—it means something that is worth telling. But if you let one ray of light leak out, I shall never speak to you again, and shall tell your age all over Washington.”
Mrs. Luttrell looked at Baskerville with admiring eyes. “That’s the way your uncle used to talk to me. No one else in the world ever did it, except you and him.”
“You are an impudent rogue. Yes, I will obey you.”
“Then go to your desk this minute and write Miss Clavering a note offering the hospitality of your roof and your services as chaperon whenever she requires it; and mind you make it a very affectionate note.”