第22章

I betook myself to Ambient's study, delighted to have a quiet hour to look over his books by myself.The windows were open to the garden;the sunny stillness, the mild light of the English summer, filled the room without quite chasing away the rich dusky tone that was a part of its charm and that abode in the serried shelves where old morocco exhaled the fragrance of curious learning, as well as in the brighter intervals where prints and medals and miniatures were suspended on a surface of faded stuff.The place had both colour and quiet; Ithought it a perfect room for work and went so far as to say to myself that, if it were mine to sit and scribble in, there was no knowing but I might learn to write as well as the author of "Beltraffio." This distinguished man still didn't reappear, and Irummaged freely among his treasures.At last I took down a book that detained me a while and seated myself in a fine old leather chair by the window to turn it over.I had been occupied in this way for half an hour--a good part of the afternoon had waned--when I became conscious of another presence in the room and, looking up from my quarto, saw that Mrs.Ambient, having pushed open the door quite again in the same noiseless way marking or disguising her entrance the night before, had advanced across the threshold.On seeing me she stopped; she had not, I think, expected to find me.But her hesitation was only of a moment; she came straight to her husband's writing-table as if she were looking for something.I got up and asked her if I could help her.She glanced about an instant and then put her hand upon a roll of papers which I recognised, as I had placed it on that spot at the early hour of my descent from my room.

"Is this the new book?" she asked, holding it up.

"The very sheets," I smiled; "with precious annotations.""I mean to take your advice"--and she tucked the little bundle under her arm.I congratulated her cordially and ventured to make of my triumph, as I presumed to call it, a subject of pleasantry.But she was perfectly grave and turned away from me, as she had presented herself, without relaxing her rigour; after which I settled down to my quarto again with the reflexion that Mrs.Ambient was truly an eccentric.My triumph, too, suddenly seemed to me rather vain.Awoman who couldn't unbend at a moment exquisitely indicated would never understand Mark Ambient.He came back to us at last in person, having brought the Doctor with him."He was away from home," Mark said, "and I went after him to where he was supposed to be.He had left the place, and I followed him to two or three others, which accounts for my delay." He was now with Mrs.Ambient, looking at the child, and was to see Mark again before leaving the house.My host noticed at the end of two minutes that the proof-sheets of his new book had been removed from the table; and when I told him, in reply to his question as to what I knew about them, that Mrs.Ambient had carried them off to read he turned almost pale with surprise."What has suddenly made her so curious?" he cried; and I was obliged to tell him that I was at the bottom of the mystery.I had had it on my conscience to assure her that she really ought to know of what her husband was capable."Of what I'm capable? Elle ne s'en doute que trop!" said Ambient with a laugh; but he took my meddling very good-naturedly and contented himself with adding that he was really much afraid she would burn up the sheets, his emendations and all, of which latter he had no duplicate.The Doctor paid a long visit in the nursery, and before he came down I retired to my own quarters, where I remained till dinner-time.On entering the drawing-room at this hour I found Miss Ambient in possession, as she had been the evening before.

"I was right about Dolcino," she said, as soon as she saw me, with an air of triumph that struck me as the climax of perversity."He's really very ill.""Very ill! Why when I last saw him, at four o'clock, he was in fairly good form.""There has been a change for the worse, very sudden and rapid, and when the Doctor got here he found diphtheritic symptoms.He ought to have been called, as I knew, in the morning, and the child oughtn't to have been brought into the garden.""My dear lady, he was very happy there," I protested with horror.

"He would be very happy anywhere.I've no doubt he's very happy now, with his poor little temperature--!" She dropped her voice as her brother came in, and Mark let us know that as a matter of course Mrs.