He looked somewhat sternly at old Jones (the prattler).
“I am positive certain, sir,” said the old domestic, aggrieved, casting a reproachful look at his master as he retired. Dr. Paull had never spoken so sharply to him before.
“What a curious thing,” Hugh was telling himself. “Lady Forwood made all that fuss about my seeing the girl—and I am not sent for!”
It was only twenty-four hours since he was sitting in the box talking to the princess, but this fact did not occur to him. So many thoughts had passed through his mind, he had made such startling resolutions during those twenty-four hours that they seemed a week.
The next day passed, and the day after, in the usual routine. Rarely had that routine seemed so dull.
“What is the matter with my father, do you think, Jones?” asked Ralph of his old crony, who had been his secret playfellow since he first spun tops and made kite-tails for him. “He seems so strange. Has he been ill, and kept it to himself?”
“How can I tell, Master Ralph? How can the likes o’ me understand the likes o’ him?” answered Jones. In his heart of hearts, Jones feared that “much learning” was making his master certainly inclined to madness.
A few days later came a note from Lady Forwood.
“At last,” muttered Dr. Paull, who considered himself somewhat peculiarly treated by “a couple of women,” and attributed his irritable humour to annoyance thereat. But the letter merely asked him to dine to-morrow, and contained no mention of the princess.
“But it is pretty certain she is to be there, or I should scarcely have been invited,” he thought.