Ambrotox and Limping Dick | Page 6

a bad case, but getting worse. And then," said Caldegard, looking towards his daughter, "he had the presumption----"
"Oh, father, please!" cried Amaryllis.
"I'm sorry, my dear," said her father. "I was only----"
He was interrupted by a crash, a fumbling and a burst of flame. One of the four-branched candlesticks had been upset, and its rose-coloured shades were on fire. Very coolly the two Bellamys' pinched out the flames and replaced the candles.
"Hope that didn't startle you, Miss Caldegard," said Randal.
"Not a bit," said Amaryllis, smiling.
"What a clumsy devil you are, Dick," he continued.
"I was trying to get the sugar," said Dick.
Randal tasted his coffee. "Cook's got one fault, Dick," he said. "She can't make coffee; and we've been spoiled."
"Yes, indeed," said Caldegard. "I've never in my life drunk black coffee to beat what your yellow-haired Dutch girl used to make."
Randal turned to his brother. "Parlour-maid, Dick. Best servant I ever had. Didn't mind the country, and after she'd been here a fortnight disclosed a heaven-sent gift for making coffee. Took some diplomacy, I can tell you, to get cook to cede her rights."
"Why haven't you got her now?" asked Dick.
"Mother started dying in Holland," replied his brother, "and we miss our coffee."
"I'll do it to-morrow night," said Dick.
"What'll Rogers say?" said Randal.
"Rogers? You don't tell me you've got Rogers still?"
"Of course I have."
"Not my Mrs. Rogers!" exclaimed Dick. "Why, she'd let me skate all over her kitchen, if I wanted to."
* * * * *
Randal Bellamy, although he had a motor-car and used the telephone, lagged lovingly behind the times in less important matters. He was proud of his brass candlesticks, and hated electric light.
While Amaryllis was saying good-night to her host, Dick Bellamy lighted her candle and waited for her at the foot of the stairs. When she reached him, she did not at once take it, so that they mounted several steps together; then she paused.
"Good night, Mr. Bellamy. I hope you didn't hurt your fingers, putting the fire out. Are you a very awkward person?" she asked, looking up at him whimsically.
"Shocking," said Dick. "I'm always doing things like that."
"I believe you are," she replied softly. "Thank you so much."
When he went to his room that night, Dick Bellamy was followed by a vivid ghost with reddish-gold hair, golden-brown, expressive eyes, adorable mouth, and skin of perfect texture, over neck and shoulders of a creamy whiteness which melted into the warmer colour of the face by gradation so fine that none could say where that flush as of a summer sunset first touched the snow.
As he got into bed, he told himself that he did not object to being haunted up to midnight, nor even over the edge of sleep, by a spook so attractive. But if it should come to waking too early to a spectre implacable--well, that had happened to him once only, long ago, and he didn't want it to happen again.
But the car would be all right to-morrow--there was always the car.
CHAPTER V.
AMBROTOX.
Amaryllis found her father and Sir Randal at the breakfast-table.
"I'm so glad I'm not the laziest," she said, as she took her seat.
"I'm afraid you are, my dear," replied her father.
"Dick's fetching his car from Iddingfield," explained Randal.
The air was torn by three distinct wails from a syren.
"How unearthly!" said Amaryllis, with her hands to her ears.
"That's Dick," said his brother. "He would have a noise worse than anyone else's."
Dick came in from the garden. "Morning, Miss Caldegard," he said, as he sat down. "How d'you like my hooter? Sounds like a fog-horn deprived of its young, doesn't it?"
Amaryllis laughed.
"I hate it," she said.
Randal looked up from the letter he was reading.
"I'm afraid you two will have to amuse each other this morning," he said, glancing from the girl to his brother as he handed the letter across the table to Caldegard. "That'll take a lot of answering, and I can't do it without your help. I'm afraid Sir Charles has got hold of the wrong end of the stick."
"How are you going to amuse me, Miss Caldegard?" asked Dick.
"I haven't the faintest idea," she replied.
"Help me try my car?"
"I should like to--if you can do without me, dad?"
* * * * *
At half-past seven that evening Sir Randal went to his brother's room, and found him dressing for dinner.
"Nice sort of chap you are," he said. "I ask you to amuse a young woman after breakfast----"
"I did," said Dick.
"And you keep her for eight hours. Where have you been?"
"Miss Caldegard bought things in Oxford Street. We had lunch in Oxford, and tea at Chesham," said Dick, brushing his hair carefully back from his forehead. "You can't call that wasting time."
"Not yours," said his brother. And they went to dinner.
Before Amaryllis left the table, Dick rose from his seat.
"Where are you going?"