He started and looked up with his kindly smile as I approached with the morning papers, then spoke quickly:
“No reading this morning, Quenton. I have an errand for you. One which only you can do to my satisfaction.” And thereupon he told me what it was, and how it might take me some hours, as it could only be accomplished in a town some fifty miles distant. “The car is ready,” said he, “and I would be glad to have you take it now as I want you to be home in time for dinner.”
I turned impulsively, casting one glance at Orpha.
“You may take Orpha.”
But she would not go. In a flurry of excitement and with every sign of subdued agitation, she hurriedly rose and came our way.
“I cannot leave you, Father. I should worry every minute. Quenton will pardon my discourtesy, but with him gone and Edgar not yet here my place is with you.”
I could not dispute it, nor could he. With a smile half apologetic, half grateful, he let me go, and the only consolation which the moment brought me was the fact that her eyes were still on mine when I turned to close the door.
But intoxicating as the pleasure would have been to have had her with me during this hundred mile ride, my thoughts during that long flight through a most uninteresting country, dwelt much less upon my disappointment than on the purpose actuating my uncle in thus disposing of my presence for so many hours on this especial day.
In itself, the errand was one of no importance. I knew enough of his business affairs to be quite sure of that. Why, then, this long trip on a day so unpropitious as to be positively forbidding?
The question agitated me all the way there and was not settled to my mind at the hour of my return. Something had been going on in my absence which he had thought it undesirable for me to witness. The proof of this I saw in every face I met. Even the maids cast uneasy glances at me whenever I chanced to run upon one of them in my passage through the hall. It was different with Uncle. He wore a look of relief, for which he gave no explanation then or later.