The Collected Works of R. Austin Freeman (Illustrated Edition). R. Austin Freeman

I did not care much if he did seeing that he had been shown to be perfectly harmless. The only circumstance that tended to restrain me from this folly was the one that mitigated its rashness—the change in my appearance; and even that, now that I was used to it and knew that my aspect was neither grotesque nor ridiculous, had little weight, for Sylvia would be prepared for the change and we could enjoy the joke together.

      I was aware, even at the time, that I was not being quite candid with myself, for, if I had been, I should obviously have consulted Thorndyke. Instead of which I answered the letter by return, announcing my intention of coming to tea on the following day; and having sent Polton out to post it, spent the remainder of the afternoon in gleeful anticipation of my little holiday, tempered by some nervousness as to what Thorndyke would have to say on the matter, and as to what "my pretty friend," as Mrs. Samway had very appropriately called her, would think of my having begun my letter with the words, "My dear Sylvia."

      Nothing happened to interfere with my nefarious plans.

      On the following morning, Thorndyke and Jervis went off after an early breakfast, leaving me in possession of the premises and master of my actions. I elected to anticipate the usual luncheon time by half an hour, and, when this meal was disposed of, I crept to my room and thoroughly cleansed my hair of the grease which Polton still persisted in applying to it; for, since my hat would conceal it while I was out of doors, the added disfigurement was unnecessary. I was even tempted to tamper slightly with my eyebrows, but this impulse I nobly resisted; and, having dried my hair and combed it in its normal fashion, I descended on tip-toe to the sitting-room and wrote a short, explanatory note to Polton, which I left conspicuously on the table. Then I switched the door-bell on to the laboratory, and, letting myself out like a retreating burglar, closed the door silently and sneaked away down the dark staircase.

      Once fairly outside, I went off like a lamplighter, and, shooting out through the Tudor Street gate, made my way eastward to Broad Street Station, where I was fortunate enough to catch a train that was just on the point of starting. At Hampstead Heath Station I got out, and, snuffing the air joyfully, set forth at my best pace up the slope that leads to the summit; and in little over twenty minutes found myself at the gate of "The Hawthorns."

      There was no need to knock or ring. My approach had been observed from the window, and, as I strode up the garden path, the door opened and Sylvia ran out to meet me. "It was nice of you to come!" she exclaimed, as I took her hand and held it in mine. "I don't believe you ought to have ventured out, but I am most delighted all the same. Don't make a noise; Mopsy is having a little doze in the drawing room. Come into the morning room and let me have a good look at you."

      I followed her meekly into the front room, where, in the large bay window, she inspected me critically, her cheeks dimpling with a mischievous smile. "There's something radically wrong about your eyebrows," she said, "but, really, you are not in the least the fright that you made out. As to the beard and moustache, I am not sure that I don't rather like them."

      "I hope you don't," I replied, " because, off they come at the first opportunity—unless, of course, you forbid it."

      "Does my opinion of your appearance matter so much then?"

      "It matters entirely. I don't care what I look like to anyone else."

      "Oh I what a fib!" exclaimed Sylvia. "Don't I remember how very neatly turned out you always were when you used to pass me in the lane before we knew one another?"

      "Exactly," I retorted. "We didn't know one another then. That makes all the difference in the world—to me, at any rate."

      "Does it?" she said, colouring a little and looking at me thoughtfully. "It's very—very flattering of you to say so, Dr. Jardine."

      "I hope you don't mean that as a snub," I said, rather uneasy at the form of her reply and thinking of my letter.

      "A snub!" she exclaimed. "No, I certainly don't. What did I say?"

      "You called me Dr. Jardine. I addressed you in my letter as "Sylvia "—"My dear Sylvia."

      "And what ought I to have said?" she asked, blushing warmly and casting down her eyes.

      "Well, Sylvia, if you liked me as well as I like you, I don't see why you shouldn't call me Humphrey. We are quite old friends now."

      "So we are," she agreed; "and perhaps it would be less formal. So Humphrey it shall be in future, since that is your royal command. But tell me, how did you prevail on Dr. Thorndyke to let you come here? Is there any change in the situation?"

      "There's a change in my situation, and a mighty agreeable change, too. I'm here."

      "Now don't be silly. How did you persuade Dr. Thorndyke to let you come?"

      "Ha—that, my dear Sylvia, is a rather embarrassing question. Shall we change the subject?"

      "No, we won't." She looked at me suspiciously for a moment and then exclaimed in low, tragical tones: "Humphrey! You don't mean to tell me that you came away without his knowledge!"

      "I'm afraid that is what it amounts to. I saw a loop-hole and I popped through it; and here I am, as I remarked before."

      "But how dreadful of you! Perfectly shocking! And whatever will he say to you when you go back?"

      "That is a question that I am not proposing to present vividly to my consciousness until I arrive on the door-step. I've broken out of chokee and I'm going to have a good time—to go on having a good time, I should say."

      "Then you consider that you are having a good time now?"

      "I don't consider. I am sure of it. Am I not, at this very moment looking at you? And what more could a man desire?"

      She tried to look severe, though the attempt was not strikingly successful, and retorted in an admonishing tone: "You needn't try to wheedle me with compliments. You are a very wicked person and most indiscreet. But it seems to me that some sort of change has come over you since you retired from the world. Don't you think I'm right?"

      "You're perfectly right. I've improved. That's what it is. Matured and mellowed, you know, like a bottle of claret that has been left in a cellar and forgotten. Say you think I've improved, Sylvia."

      "I won't," she replied, and then, changing her mind, she added: "Yes, I will. I'll say that you are more insinuating than ever, if that will do. And now, as, you are clearly quite incorrigible, I won't scold you any more, especially as you 'broke out of chokee' to come and see me. You shall tell me all about your adventures."

      "I didn't come here to talk about myself, Sylvia. I came to tell you something—well, about myself, perhaps, but—er—not my adventures you know or—or that sort of thing—but, I have been thinking a good deal, since I have been alone so much—about you, I mean, Sylvia—and—er—Oh! the deuce!"

      The latter exclamation was evoked by the warning voice of the gong, evidently announcing tea, and the subsequent appearance of the housemaid; who was certainly not such a goose as she was supposed to be, for she tapped discreetly at the door and waited three full seconds before entering; and even then she appeared demurely unconscious of my existence. "If you please, Miss Sylvia, Miss Vyne has woke up and I've taken in the tea."

      Such was the paltry interruption that arrested the flow of my eloquence and scattered my flowers of rhetoric to the winds. I murmured inwardly, "Blow the tea!" for the opportunity was gone; but I comforted myself with the reflection that it didn't matter very much, since Sylvia and I seemed to have arrived at a pretty clear understanding; which understanding was further clarified by a momentary contact of our hands as we followed the maid to the drawing-room. Miss Vyne was on this occasion, as on the last, seated in the exact centre of the room, and with the same monumental effect; so that my thoughts were borne irresistibly to the ethnographical section of the British Museum, and especially to that part of it wherein the deities of Polynesia look out from their cases in perennial surprise at the degenerate European visitors. If she had been asleep previously, she was wide enough awake now; but the glittering eyes were not directed at me. From the moment of our entering the room they focussed themselves on Sylvia's face and there remained riveted,