"Good day, and thanks very much."
He touched his cap and withdrew.
A wrestle with mental arithmetic showed me that the draught which I had
encountered nearly an hour before had cost me exactly one and a half
guineas.
Ordinarily I should have dismissed the matter from my mind, but for some
reason I had no sooner let the chauffeur go than I was tormented by a
persistent curiosity regarding the identity of his considerate mistress.
If I had not promised to rejoin Berry for lunch--a meal for which I was
already half an hour late--I should have gone to the Berkeley and
scrutinized the guests. The reflection that such a proceeding must only
have been unprofitable consoled me not at all, so contrary a maid is
Speculation. For the next two hours Vexation rode me on the curb. I
quarrelled with Berry, I was annoyed with myself, and when the
hall-porter at the Club casually observed that there was "a nasty wind,"
I agreed with such hearty and unexpected bitterness that he started
violently and dropped the pile of letters which he was searching on my
behalf.
A visit to Lincoln's Inn Fields, however, with regard to an estate of
which I was a trustee, followed by a sharp walk in the Park, did much to
reduce the ridiculous fever of which my folly lay sick, and I returned
home in a frame of mind almost as comfortable as that in which I had set
out.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91