Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/301

 Sir Appleton Deepe was mad; I can only fear that his madness was contagious.”

I was beside myself with anger. . . And at the same time highly uneasy. Will had not been going to his club the last few days because of this girl’s practice of camping on the doorstep there; and it was long past the time when he usually came home. Culroyd shrugged his shoulders and said good-bye. I waited—on and on. Seven o’clock, half-past seven, eight. I was just going up to dress when Norden rang through to say that some one wished to speak to me on the telephone. Need I tell you that it was Sir Appleton Deepe? My dear, by that time I should have been amazed if it had been any one else; he seemed to dog my steps and pervade my life. As, he said, I was apparently expecting Will home to dinner, I should no doubt like to know that my boy was with him; they had met in the street, and he had persuaded him to come home. . . You have met the man, of course. Well, I wonder whether you will agree with me here. Ordinarily, I should say, he had the furtive, apologetic manner of one who is not quite certain of himself; once roused, even by something that the detached outsider might think was not quite his business, he is a changed man.