But there, the ways of the world are really
inscrutable! What reconciles me to life, every day I grow older, is
that it's so amusing--so intensely amusing! You never know what's
going to turn up next; and what you least expect is what most often
happens."
Elma, however, received his news with a very grave face.
"Is he really ill, do you think, papa?" she asked, somewhat anxiously;
"or is he only--well--only frightened?"
Mr. Clifford stared at her with a blank leathery face of self-satisfied
incomprehension.
"Frightened!" he repeated solemnly; "Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve
frightened! And of Granville Kelmscott, too! That's true wit, Elma;
the juxtaposition of the incongruous. Why, what on earth has the
man got to be frightened of, I should like to know? ... No, no;
he's really ill; very seriously ill. Humphreys says the case is a
most peculiar one, and he's telegraphed up to town for a specialist
to come down this afternoon and consult with him."
And indeed, Sir Gilbert was really very ill. This unexpected shock
had wholly unmanned him. To say the truth, the judge had begun to
look upon Guy Waring as practically lost, and upon the matter of
Montague Nevitt's death as closed for ever.
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