'There he goes again,' said Dick, groaning.
'What is it?' Mary asked, returning to the bedroom.
'Why did he say you were not his sister?' Rob said, very suspiciously.
'Oh, his mind was wandering,' Mary answered cruelly.
She was retiring again, but stopped undecidedly. Then she looked from the door to see if her brother was within hearing. Dick was at the other end of the sitting-room, and she came back noiselessly to Rob's bedside.
'Do you remember,' she asked, in a low voice, 'how the accident happened? You know you were struck by a cab.'
'Yes,' answered Rob at once, 'I saw him kissing you. I don't remember anything after that.'
Mary, looking like a culprit, glanced hurriedly at the door. Then she softly pushed the invalid's unruly hair off his brow, and glided from the room smiling.
'Well?' asked Dick.
'He was telling me how the accident happened,' Mary said.
'And how was it?'
'Oh, just as you said. He got bewildered at a crossing and was knocked over.'
'But he wasn't the man to lose his reason at a crossing,' said Dick. 'There must have been something to agitate him.'
'He said nothing about that,' replied Mary, without blushing.
'Did he tell you how he knew my name was Abinger?' Dick asked, as they went downstairs.
'No,' his sister said, 'I forgot to ask him.'
'There was that Christmas card, too,' Dick said suddenly. 'Nell says Angus must be in love, poor fellow.'
'Nell is always thinking people are in love,' Mary answered severely.
'By the way,' said Dick, 'what became of the card? He might want to treasure it, you know.'
'I—I rather think I put it somewhere,' Mary said.
'I wonder,' Dick remarked curiously, 'what sort of girl Angus would take to?'
'I wonder,' said Mary.
They were back in Dick's chambers by this time, and he continued with some complacency—for all men think they are on safe ground when discussing an affair of the heart:—
'We could build the young lady up from the card, which, presumably, was her Christmas offering to him. It was not expensive, so she is a careful young person; and the somewhat florid design represents a blue bird sitting on a pink twig, so that we may hazard the assertion that her artistic taste is not as yet fully developed. She is a fresh country maid, or the somewhat rich colouring would not have taken her fancy, and she is short, a trifle stout, or a big man like Angus would not have fallen in love with her. Reserved men like gushing girls, so she gushes and says "Oh my!" and her nicest dress (here Dick shivered) is of a shiny satin with a dash of rich velvet here and there. Do you follow me?'
'Yes,' said Mary; 'it is wonderful. I suppose, now, you are never wrong when you "build up" so much on so little?'
'Sometimes we go a little astray,' admitted Dick. 'I remember going into a hotel with Rorrison once, and on a table we saw a sailor-hat lying, something like the one Nell wears—or is it you?'
'The idea of your not knowing!' said his sister indignantly.
'Well, we discussed the probable owner. I concluded, after narrowly examining the hat, that she was tall, dark, and handsome, rather than pretty. Rorrison, on the other hand, maintained that she was a pretty, baby-faced girl, with winning ways.'
'And did you discover if either of you was right?'
'Yes,' said Dick slowly. 'In the middle of the discussion a little boy in a velvet suit toddled into the room, and said to us, "Gim'me my hat."'
In the weeks that followed, Rob had many delicious experiences. He was present at several tea-parties in Abinger's chambers, the guests being strictly limited to three; and when he could not pretend to be ill any longer, he gave a tea-party himself in honour of his two nurses—his one and a half nurses, Dick called them. At this Mary poured out the tea, and Rob's eyes showed so plainly (though not to Dick) that he had never seen anything like it, that Nell became thoughtful, and made a number of remarks on the subject to her mother as soon as she returned home.
'It would never do,' Nell said, looking wise.
'Whatever would the colonel say!' exclaimed Mrs. Meredith. 'After all, though,' she added—for she had been to see Rob twice, and liked him because of something he had said to her about his mother—'he is just the same as Richard.'
'Oh no, no,' said Nell, 'Dick is an Oxford man, you must remember, and Mr. Angus, as the colonel would say, rose from obscurity.'
'Well, if he did,' persisted Mrs. Meredith, 'he does not seem to be going back to it, and universities seem to me to be places for making young men stupid.'
'It would never, never do,' said Nell, with doleful decision.
'What does Mary say about him?' asked her mother.
'She never says anything,' said Nell.
'Does she talk much to him?'
'No; very little.'
'That is a good sign,' said Mrs. Meredith.
'I don't know,' said Nell.
'Have you noticed anything else?'
'Nothing except—well, Mary is longer in dressing now than I am, and she used not to be.'
'I wonder,' Mrs. Meredith remarked, 'if Mary saw him at Silchester after that time at the castle?'
'She never told me she did,' Nell answered, 'but sometimes I think—however, there is no good in thinking.'
'It isn't a thing you often do, Nell. By the way, he saw the first Sir Clement at Dome Castle, did he not?'
'Yes,' Nell said, 'he saw the impostor, and I don't suppose he knows there is another Sir Clement. The Abingers don't like to speak of that. However, they may meet on Friday, for Dick has got Mr. Angus a card for the Symphonia, and Sir Clement is to be there.'
'What does Richard say about it?' asked Mrs. Meredith, going back apparently upon their conversation.
'We never speak about it, Dick and I,' said Nell.
'What do you speak about, then?'
'Oh, nothing,' said Nell.
Mrs. Meredith sighed.
'And you such an heiress, Nell,' she said; 'you could do so much better. He will never have anything but what he makes by writing; and if all stories be true, half of that goes to the colonel. I'm sure your father never will consent.'
'Oh yes, he will,' Nell said.
'If he had really tried to get on at the Bar,' Mrs. Meredith pursued, 'it would not have been so bad, but he is evidently to be a newspaper man all his life.'
'I wish you would say journalist, mamma,' Nell said, pouting, 'or literary man. The profession of letters is a noble one.'
'Perhaps it is,' Mrs. Meredith assented, with another sigh, 'and I dare say he told you so, but I can't think it is very respectable.'
Rob did not altogether enjoy the Symphonia, which is a polite club attended by the literary fry of both sexes; the ladies who write because they cannot help it, the poets who excuse their verses because they were young when they did them, the clergymen who publish their sermons by request of their congregations, the tourists who have been to Spain and cannot keep it to themselves. The club meets once a fortnight, for the purpose of not listening to music and recitations; and the members, of whom the ladies outnumber the men, sit in groups round little lions who roar mildly. The Symphonia is very fashionable and select, and having heard the little lions a-roaring, you get a cup of coffee and go home again.
Dick