"What did Mrs. Carstairs say to that?"
"She agreed, of course. And if I were you"--Dr. Willows felt vaguely uncomfortable as he stood there in the morning sunshine--"I'd go round pretty soon." He looked at his watch ostentatiously. "By Jove, it's after ten--I must get on. Then you'll go round to Cherry Orchard this morning?"
"Yes." Anstice accepted the inevitable. "I'll go round almost immediately. Thanks very much for coming, Willows. I ... I'm grateful to you."
"Oh, that's all right!" Dr. Willows, relieved by the change in Anstice's manner, waved his hand airily and returned to his car; and as soon as he was out of sight Anstice entered his own motor and turned in the direction of Cherry Orchard.
After all, he said to himself as the car glided swiftly over the hard white road, there was no reason why Mrs. Carstairs should find anything suspicious in his inability to visit Cherry Orchard on the previous evening. Doctors were only human after all--prone to the same ills to which other men are subject; and although the exigencies of one of the most exacting professions in the world would seem to inspire a corresponding endurance in its members, there are moments in which even the physician must pause in his ministrations to the world, in order, as it were, to tune up his own bodily frame to meet the demands upon it.
Of course it was possible that Cheniston had divulged to his sister the true reason of Anstice's non-arrival; but Anstice did not think it likely; for although there was, and always must be, a strong antagonism between the two men, Cheniston was an honourable man; and the secret upon which he had stumbled was one which a man of honour would instinctively keep to himself.
That his secret was safe with Iris, Anstice knew beyond any question; and as his car swept up the drive to the jasmine-covered door of Cherry Orchard he told himself that it was only his conscience which made him feel as though his absence on the previous evening must have looked odd, unusual, even--he could not help the word--suspicious.
The door was opened to him by Hagyard, and there was no doubting the sincerity of his welcome.
"Good morning, sir. I was looking out for you.... Miss Cherry's awakened, they say, and is in a sad state."
His unusual loquacity was a proof of his mental disturbance, and Anstice spoke sharply.
"Where is she? Shall I go upstairs?"
"If you please, sir. Here is Tochatti come for you, sir." And he stood aside to allow the woman to approach.