* * * * *
In a double room at his hotel, repacking the articles of toilet he had
spread around the bathroom, Lee thought, but without heat, damn that
Grove woman. He didn't want to go to the Grove house, it would
complicate things with Fanny; and, if William did enjoy him, Lee
Randon, would he enjoy William? It was questionable in the present
state of his mind. Dinner, a servant at the Groves' informed him, would
be at eight. His bag was swiftly and skillfully unpacked for him--this
always annoyed Lee--and the water was turned into the tub. His room,
richly draped and oppressive as the one downstairs, had a bed with a
high carved oak headboard from which a heavy canopy, again of velvet
and again crimson, reached to the floor at its foot; and by the side of
the bed ran a long cushion over which he repeatedly stumbled.
His immediate necessity was to telephone Fanny; she was delighted at
the sound of his voice; but, when he told her what had happened, where
he was, an increasing irritation crept into her voice. "I can't
understand it at all," he heard her say, so clearly that it
reconstructed her, expression and probable dress and setting,
completely. "You asked me to come over and shop, and go to the theatre
with you; and now that I have everything arranged, even Christopher
pacified, you go to the Groves'. It seems to me most peculiar.
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