"That difficulty is not our fault," she rejoined in an undertone.
Harvey turned to Mr. Dalrymple. "I think I must say Tuesday," he remarked. "As you suggest, we can go into business on Monday morning; and a ride in the afternoon would be pleasant. I should like to visit old haunts."
"I must not ask more. We will be content with so much at the present moment. But you will bring your Julia to pay us a long visit soon. How soon?"
Harvey was touched again, as he had been before, with the old man's acquiescence in disappointment. "Then you will give her a welcome!"
"My dear fellow! You and she are one now."
Harvey wondered if the widowed sister and her child would be welcomed also. He did not care yet to confess having promised a home for the present to those two. Mrs. Trevor was, or could be, a very agreeable person; and since she had nothing now to live upon, his action was undoubtedly kind. Nobody could question that fact. But he had somehow a vague sense of having been "managed" in this arrangement, and he objected to others guessing what he suspected. After all, if he chose to add to his household, it was his own affair, certainly not Hermione's. Minor matters such as this could be divulged later.
Hermione seemed more willing to converse after dinner, though her first eagerness and warmth of manner had vanished. She showed Harvey all due courtesy and attention as to a guest, not sisterly affection as to a brother.
Mr. Dalrymple dropped asleep in his armchair, and Hermione remarked that he often did so in the evening for ten minutes, only this day it proved to be for a good deal longer. He slept on heavily, and when roused by the entrance of coffee he dropped off again, leaving his cup untasted. "I cannot think what makes him so tired," Hermione remarked uneasily; and Harvey was struck anew with Mr. Dalrymple's aged and wan look. He wondered that Hermione had never spoken in her letters of a change. Could it have crept on so gradually as to be unnoticed?
Sunday morning broke more cheerfully as to the household atmosphere, though outside in clouds and rain. For once Mr. Dalrymple did not appear until late. He had overslept himself, he said—the first time for years past—and he inquired curiously if nobody had heard any thunder. The air certainly had been charged with electricity the night before, and this morning he had quite a headache, so very unusual with him. But neither Hermione nor Harvey could speak of the most distant peal or flash, and Slade, when appealed to, stated the same in his suppressed tones.
"Well, well—it is an old man's fancy, I suppose!" and then Mr. Dalrymple sat down to breakfast, but did not seem able to eat.