Felix was pre-disposed to dislike the Valentines. He objected much to certain things in this letter of Prue's. What business had she to speak of Cecilia's "hope" and "trust," in terms which distinctly implied that they were new, the outcome of a recent experience? If Cecilia had not before been so ready for the great change impending, this would at once leave him where she had stood, would place him apart from her in a kind of outside category, as requiring still what Sissie had somehow found. Felix would accept no such view of the question. He "pished" over it indignantly.
"A set of fanatics!" he declared, with the glib contempt of ignorance: and he flung the letter on the fire, careless that it contained a message to Mr. Kelly. He would not go in Mr. Kelly's way. Miss Valentine might write to Mr. Kelly herself, if she chose. Nor would he spend a long Sunday at the Farm, to be talked at and preached to. So he telegraphed that he would go on Monday; and he wrote a line to Lettice, making the excuse that he must wait for his mourning.
Then he went through a brief interview with Mr. Thompson, asking for Monday's absence, and uncomfortably begging an advance of salary to pay for the journey. Had it not been for the message to Mr. Kelly, which Felix would not give, he would have preferred to ask a loan in that direction.
"Why did you not tell me yesterday?" Mr. Thompson asked kindly. He offered another day or two beyond the Tuesday, which Felix declined, and he advanced the needful amount without hesitation.
Nan was the first to descry Felix's approach, before early dinner. She rushed out to meet him, blushing all over her plain face.
"Oh, we were so sorry you couldn't get here sooner," she cried. "It is such a dreadful disappointment to Lettice. And we are depending on you to put things right. Dr. Bryant can't come, after all—he has a cold or something—and Lettice is bent on going off to him this week: and we want to keep her here another month. Do, do please persuade her to stay."
"Nan!" a reproving voice said behind. And gentle Mrs. Valentine came forward; whereupon Nan subsided and vanished.
Felix had listened with an air of rigid reserve to Nan's outburst, attempting no response, and he met Mrs. Valentine's kind greeting in the same manner. Dinner would be ready in a few minutes, she said: and after that—But would Mr. Anderson like to see Lettice at once? Up in her room. She had not come down yet.
"I would rather wait," Felix answered.
And strange though the delay might seem to Mrs. Valentine, she had learnt the rare art of letting people be unhappy in their own way. She could believe that he dreaded anything which might cause him to lose his self-control before the sad ceremony near at hand: though she had never seen any one less likely in appearance to break-down, than this good-looking young fellow, with his confident and reserved air.