"Damned clumsy of you!" growled Heyton. "I'm in a beast of a mess!
Where's a cloth?"
"Pray take my handkerchief, my lord," said Mr. Jacobs, offering it.
At this moment, Celia entered the room. She would have drawn back at
sight of the two men; but Heyton called to her over his shoulder.
"Hi! Have you got a cloth? The ink's upset----"
She ran to a drawer and took out a clean duster; and Heyton, swearing
under his breath, wiped the remainder of the ink from his fingers.
"I'd better go and wash it," he said; and he went out of the room.
"Tut, tut!" said Mr. Jacobs. "It was my fault, Miss Grant. I was
reaching for the ink, to bring it nearer his lordship, when my sleeve or
something caught the corner of the desk here and, before you could say
'Jack Robinson,' the mischief was done."
He seemed so greatly distressed and upset by the accident, that Celia
quite felt for him.
"Oh, it is not a very great matter," she said, soothingly. "There has
been no harm done."
Indeed, it did seem to her a very trivial affair, compared with the
awful tragedy in which they were moving. "I will get a cloth and wipe up
the ink; fortunately, it hasn't run on to the carpet."
As she spoke, she took up the sheets of writing-paper and blotting paper
between her finger and thumb, intending to put them in the waste-paper
basket; but, with a kind of apologetic laugh, Mr. Jacobs laid his hand
on her arm, and said: "No, don't throw them away! Give them to me, if you will. I should like
to keep them as a kind of memento, as a sort of warning for the future
not to be so clumsy."
With a shadow of a smile, she gave the two pieces of paper to him, and
as he took them he said, "I've got my own fingers inked. Serve me right. I'll go and wash my
hands. Really, I shall never forgive myself! No wonder his lordship was
angry."
"Was he?" said Celia, absently. "Yes; he was. But you must remember Lord
Heyton is very much upset; when one's nerves are on the rack, the least
thing, trifling though it may be----"
"Quite so; quite so," said Mr. Jacobs, with a nod of comprehension.
He was still so much upset by the accident, that he forgot to wash his
hands and went straight to his sitting-room, still carrying the two
sheets of paper, the evidences of his inexcusable clumsiness.