第48章

Tembarom did not go up-stairs at once himself.He sat by the fire and smoked several pipes of tobacco and thought things over.There were a lot of things to think over, and several decisions to make, and he thought it would be a good idea to pass them in review.The quiet of the dead surrounded him.In a house the size of this the servants were probably half a mile away.They'd need trolleys to get to one, he thought, if you rang for them in a hurry.If an armed burglar made a quiet entry without your knowing it, he could get in some pretty rough work before any of the seventy-five footmen could come to lend a hand.

He was not aware that there were two of them standing in waiting in the hall, their powdered heads close together, so that their whispers and chuckles could be heard.A sound of movement in the library would have brought them up standing to a decorous attitude of attention conveying to the uninitiated the impression that they had not moved for hours.

Sometimes as he sat in the big morocco chair, T.Tembarom looked grave enough; sometimes he looked as though he was confronting problems which needed puzzling out and with which he was not making much headway; sometimes he looked as though he was thinking of little Ann Hutchinson, and not infrequently he grinned.Here he was up to the neck in it, and he was darned if he knew what he was going to do.He didn't know a soul, and nobody knew him.He didn't know a thing he ought to know, and he didn't know any one who could tell him.Even the Hutchinsons had never been inside a place like Temple Barholm, and they were going back to Manchester after a few weeks' stay at the grandmother's cottage.

Before he had left New York he had seen Hadman and some other fellows and got things started, so that there was an even chance that the invention would be put on its feet.He had worked hard and used his own power to control money in the future as a lever which had proved to be exactly what was needed.

Hadman had been spurred and a little startled when he realized the magnitude of what really could be done, and saw also that this slangy, moneyed youth was not merely an enthusiastic fool, but saw into business schemes pretty sharply and was of a most determined readiness.With this power ranging itself on the side of Hutchinson and his invention, it was good business to begin to move, if one did not want to run a chance of being left out in the cold.

Hutchinson had gone to Manchester, and there had been barely time for a brief but characteristic interview between him and Tembarom, when he rushed back to London.Tembarom felt rather excited when he remembered it, recalling what he had felt in confronting the struggles against emotion in the blunt-featured, red face, the breaks in the rough voice, the charging up and down the room like a curiously elated bull in a china shop, and the big effort to restrain relief and gratitude the degree of which might seem to under-value the merits of the invention itself.

Once or twice when he looked serious, Tembarom was thinking this over, and also once or twice when he grinned.Relief and gratitude notwithstanding, Hutchinson had kept him in his place, and had not made unbounded efforts to conceal his sense of the incongruity of his position as the controller of fortunes and the lord of Temple Barholm, which was still vaguely flavored with indignation.

When he had finished his last pipe, Tembarom rose and knocked the ashes out of it.

"Now for Pearson," he said.

He had made up his mind to have a talk with Pearson, and there was no use wasting time.If things didn't suit you, the best thing was to see what you could do to fix them right away --if it wasn't against the law.He went out into the hall, and seeing the two footmen standing waiting, he spoke to them.

"Say, I didn't know you fellows were there," he said."Are you waiting up for me? Well, you can go to bed, the sooner the quicker.Good night." And he went up-stairs whistling.

The glow and richness and ceremonial order of preparation in his bedroom struck him as soon as he opened the door.Everything which could possibly have been made ready for his most luxurious comfort had been made ready.He did not, it is true, care much for the huge bed with its carved oak canopy and massive pillars.

"But the lying-down part looks about all right," he said to himself.

The fine linen, the soft pillows, the downy blankets, would have allured even a man who was not tired.The covering had been neatly turned back and the snowy whiteness opened.That was English, he supposed.They hadn't got on to that at Mrs.Bowse's.

"But I guess a plain little old New York sleep will do," he said.

"Temple Barholm or no Temple Barholm, I guess they can't change that."Then there sounded a quiet knock at the door.He knew who it would turn out to be, and he was not mistaken.Pearson stood in the corridor, wearing his slightly anxious expression, but ready for orders.

Mr.Temple Barholm looked down at him with a friendly, if unusual, air.

"Say, Pearson," he announced, "if you've come to wash my face and put my hair up in crimping-pins, you needn't do it, because I'm not used to it.But come on in."If he had told Pearson to enter and climb the chimney, it cannot be said that the order would have been obeyed upon the spot, but Pearson would certainly have hesitated and explained with respectful delicacy the fact that the task was not "his place." He came into the room.

"I came to see, if I could do anything further and--" making a courageous onslaught upon the situation for which he had been preparing himself for hours--"and also--if it is not too late--to venture to trouble you with regard to your wardrobe." He coughed a low, embarrassed cough."In unpacking, sir, I found--I did not find--""You didn't find much, did you?" Tembarom assisted him.