The
one in the basement of Brown's had written on Bill's slip of paper
the words: '1 p.m. Will Lord Dawlish as soon as possible call upon
Mr Gerald Nichols at his office?' To this was appended a message
consisting of two words: 'Good news.'
It was stimulating. The probability was that all Jerry Nichols
wanted to tell him was that he had received stable information
about some horse or had been given a box for the Empire, but for
all that it was stimulating.
Bill looked at his watch. He could spare half an hour. He set out
at once for the offices of the eminent law firm of Nichols,
Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols, of which aggregation of Nicholses
his friend Jerry was the last and smallest.
3
On a west-bound omnibus Claire Fenwick sat and raged silently in the
June sunshine. She was furious. What right had Lord Dawlish to look
down his nose and murmur '_Noblesse oblige_' when she asked him a
question, as if she had suggested that he should commit some crime?
It was the patronizing way he had said it that infuriated her, as if
he were a superior being of some kind, governed by codes which she
could not be expected to understand. Everybody nowadays did the sort
of things she suggested, so what was the good of looking shocked and
saying '_Noblesse oblige_'?
The omnibus rolled on towards West Kensington.
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