An answer arrived without undue delay, and Mrs. Clover went apart to read it, her breath quicker than usual, and her fingers tremulous.  Mr. Gammon wrote with unfeigned cordiality, just like himself.  He hoped to call very soon, though it might still be a few weeks.  There was nothing to forgive on his part; he wasn’t such a fool as to be angry with an old friend for a few hasty words.  But the truth was he had a lot of business on his hands; he was doing his best to get into a permanency at Quodlings’ of Norton Folgate, and he knew Mrs. Clover would be glad to hear that.  Let her give his kind regards to Miss Minnie, and believe him when he said that he was just as friendly disposed as ever.

Beneath these words Mrs. Clover naturally enough detected nothing of the strange experiences in which Mr. Gammon was involved.  “Kind regards to Minnie.”  Yes, there was the explanation of his silence.  He called her his “old friend,” a phrase of double meaning.  Mrs. Clover, in spite of her good sense, was vexed, and wished he had not said “old.”  Why, had she not a year or two the advantage of him in youthfulness?

CHAPTER XX

THE HUSBAND’S RETURN

Gammon would gladly have answered in person Mrs. Clover’s letter, but he had promised Polly that he would neither visit the china shop nor in any way communicate with her aunt.  Polly had made a great point of this, and he thought the reason was not far to seek; she still harboured jealousy of her cousin, and no doubt it would be delightful to make known, just how and when she herself saw fit, her triumph over Minnie.  So he kept away from Battersea Park Road, though often wishing to spend an evening there in the old way, with Mrs. Clover’s bright face on one side of him and Minnie’s modestly bent head on the other.

It would have been so restful after all this excitement, for however he tried to grasp the facts, Mrs. Clover and Minnie still seemed remote from the world of wealth and titles; he could not change their names or see them in any other position than that which was familiar and natural.  In talk with Polly he always rose to hilarious anticipations, partly the result of amorous fervour; but this mood did not survive their parting.  Alone he was frequently troubled with uneasiness, with misgiving, more so as the days went by without bringing any news from Greenacre.  Under the cover of night he visited Lowndes Mansions and hung about there for half an hour, like unto one with sinister intentions; but his trouble profited him nothing.  Polly was growing impatient.  After the manner of her kind she brooded on suspicions, and hatched numerous more or less wild conjectures.  What if Greenacre had spirited Lord Polperro away for some dark purpose of his own?  Gammon himself could not help suspecting the mysterious man of deep projects which would tend to the disadvantage of Lord Polperro’s forsaken wife and child.  At the end of a fortnight he wrote to Greenacre at the Bilboes pressing for information.  To his surprise and satisfaction this brought about an interview on the following day.  Greenacre seemed radiant with a good conscience.