"Ah, of course, of course," he said with resignation, "It is all one;" and he walked slowly up the path. At the door he turned to me, and set a hand on my shoulder. "There is work, Mr. Clavering, for the feeblest arm?" he asked wistfully.
Now, all my instincts urged me to say "Yes," but, on the other hand, I remembered certain orders which had been given to me in a very decided voice, so that I stood silent. With a sorrowful shake of the head, Mr. Curwen passed through the door.
"Maybe you are right," said he, disconsolately; and then, "But the question is worth proving"—this bracing his shoulders and making a cut in the air with an imaginary sabre. However, Mary Tyson bustled forward to help him off with his great-coat, and scolded all the boldness out of him in the space of a minute, drawing such a picture of the anxiety into which his early outgoing and late home-coming had thrown the household, as melted him to humility.
"It was to do me a service," said I, interposing myself.
"And the more shame to you," says she, bluntly; "white hairs must wait on young legs!" and off she flung to the kitchen.
It was not until the following morning that Dorothy made allusion to his absence.
"I went on business to Whitehaven," he replied with a prodigious wink at me, which twisted the whole side of his face—his daughter could not but have observed it—"though the business might have waited;" and he added hurriedly, "However, I bring a message for you, my dear, for I chanced to meet old Mr. Aislabie in the street, and he sent his love to Miss Cherry-cheeks."
"Cherry-cheeks!" cried she, indignantly, "Cherry-cheeks! How dare he? Is it a bumpkin, a fat country milk-maid he takes me for?"
"My dear," said Mr. Curwen, with the gentlest spice of raillery, "you certainly deserve the charming title now."
She said no more concerning the journey to Whitehaven, being much occupied with her indignation. Once or twice I heard her mutter, "Cherry-cheeks!" to herself, but with a tone as though her tongue was too delicate for the gross epithet, and, as if to disprove its suitability, she sailed in to dinner that day with her hair all piled and builded on the top of her head under a little cap of lace, and a great hoop petticoat of silk, and the funniest little shoes of green and gold brocade with wonderful big paste buckles and the highest heels that ever I saw. Nor was that the whole of her protest. For though, as a rule, she was of a healthy, sensible appetite, now she would only toy with her meat, protesting that she could not eat a bit.