St. John floundered up out of his chair with seal-like struggles. “Do you want the furniture?” he panted.
“The furniture? Yes, why not?” said Hewson. He did not seem to know what he was saying, or to care.
“I will put that in for a mere nominal consideration--the rugs alone are worth the money--say a thousand more.”
Hewson’s man came in with a note. “The messenger is waiting, sir,” he said.
Hewson was aware of wondering that he had not heard any ring. “Will you excuse me?” he said, toward St. John.
Hewson opened the note, and read it with an expression which can only be described as a radiant frown. He sat down at his desk, and wrote an answer to the note, and gave it to his man, who was still waiting. Then he said to St. John, “What did you say the rugs were worth?”
“I’ll take them. And what do you want for the rest of the furniture?”
Clearly he had not understood that the furniture, rugs, and all, had been offered to him for a thousand dollars. But what was a man in St. John’s place to do? As it was he was turning himself out of house and home for Hewson, and that was sacrifice enough. He hesitated, sighed deeply, and then said, “Well, I will throw all that in for a couple of thousand more.”
“All right,” said Hewson, “I will give it. Have the papers made out and I will have the money ready at once.”
“Oh, there’s no hurry about that, my dear fellow,” said St. John, handsomely.
Hewson’s note was from Mrs. Rock, asking him to breakfast with her at the Walholland the next morning. She said that they were just off the steamer, which had got in late, and they had started so suddenly from London that she had not had time to write and have her apartment opened. She came to business in the last sentence where she said that Miss Hernshaw joined her in kind remembrances, and wished her to say that he must not fail them, or if he could not come to breakfast, to let them know at what hour during the day he would be kind enough to call; it was very important they should see him at the earliest possible moment.
Hewson instantly decided that this summons was related to the affair of his apparition, without imagining how or why, and when Miss Hernshaw met him, and almost before she could say that Mrs. Rock would be down in a moment, began with it, he made no feint of having come for anything else.