“I’ve had a little fish,” said Lady Hardy.

When Bradley was out of the room, Sir Richmond remarked:  “I saw that nerves man, Dr. Martineau, to-day.  He wants me to take a holiday.”

The quiet patience of the lady’s manner intensified.  She said nothing.  A flash of resentment lit Sir Richmond’s eyes.  When he spoke again, he seemed to answer unspoken accusations.  “Dr. Martineau’s idea is that he should come with me.”

The lady adjusted herself to a new point of view.

“But won’t that be reminding you of your illness and worries?”

“He seems a good sort of fellow....  I’m inclined to like him.  He’ll be as good company as anyone....  This tournedos looks excellent.  Have some.”

“I had a little bird,” said Lady Hardy, “when I found you weren’t coming.”

“But I say—­don’t wait here if you’ve dined.  Bradley can see to me.”

She smiled and shook her head with the quiet conviction of one who knew her duty better.  “Perhaps I’ll have a little ice pudding when it comes,” she said.

Sir Richmond detested eating alone in an atmosphere of observant criticism.  And he did not like talking with his mouth full to an unembarrassed interlocutor who made no conversational leads of her own.  After a few mouthfuls he pushed his plate away from him.  “Then let’s have up the ice pudding,” he said with a faint note of bitterness.

“But have you finished—?”

“The ice pudding!” he exploded wrathfully.  “The ice pudding!”

Lady Hardy sat for a moment, a picture of meek distress.  Then, her delicate eyebrows raised, and the corners of her mouth drooping, she touched the button of the silver table-bell.

CHAPTER THE THIRD

THE DEPARTURE

Section 1

No wise man goes out upon a novel expedition without misgivings.  And between their first meeting and the appointed morning both Sir Richmond Hardy and Dr. Martineau were the prey of quite disagreeable doubts about each other, themselves, and the excursion before them.  At the time of their meeting each had been convinced that he gauged the other sufficiently for the purposes of the proposed tour.  Afterwards each found himself trying to recall the other with greater distinctness and able to recall nothing but queer, ominous and minatory traits.  The doctor’s impression of the great fuel specialist grew ever darker, leaner, taller and more impatient.  Sir Richmond took on the likeness of a monster obdurate and hostile, he spread upwards until like the Djinn out of the bottle, he darkened the heavens.  And he talked too much.  He talked ever so much too much.  Sir Richmond also thought that the doctor talked too much.  In addition, he read into his imperfect memory of the doctor’s face, an expression of protruded curiosity.  What was all this problem of motives and inclinations that they were “going into” so gaily?  He had merely consulted the doctor on a simple, straightforward need for a nervous tonic—­that was what he had needed—­a tonic.  Instead he had engaged himself for—­he scarcely knew what—­an indiscreet, indelicate, and altogether undesirable experiment in confidences.