'But I don't want to walk, Robert,' said poor Dolly, with a glance at her mother. 'You may come for me to-morrow instead. You will, won't you?' she added, as he suddenly turned away without answering, and she leant out of the carriage-window, and called after him, a little frightened by his black looks and silence. 'Robert! I shall expect you,' she said.
'I shall not be able to come to-morrow, Dora,' said Henley, very gravely; and then, raising his hat, he walked off without another word.
Even then Dolly could not believe that he was seriously angry. She saw him striding along the pavement, and called to him, and made a friendly little sign with her hand as the brougham passed close by a place where he was waiting to cross the road. Robert did not seem to see either the brougham nor the kind face inside that was smiling at him. Dorothea's eyes suddenly filled up with tears.
'Boorish! Boorish!' cried Mrs. Palmer, putting up both hands. 'Robert is like all other men, they leave you at any moment, Dolly—that is my experience,—bitterly gained—without a servant even, and I have ever so much more to do. There is Parkins and Grotto's for India-paper. If only I had known that he was going to be so rude, I should have asked for old Sam.' Mrs. Palmer was still greatly discomposed. 'Pray put up that window, Dolly,' she said, 'and I do wish you would attend to those parcels—they are falling off the seat.'
Dolly managed to wink away her tears as she bent over the parcels. Forgive her for crying! This was her first quarrel with Robert, if quarrel it could be called. She thought it over all the way home, surely she had been right to do as her mother wished—why was Robert vexed?
Philippa was in a very bad humour all that evening She talked so pathetically of a mother's feelings, and of the pangs of parting from her child, that Lady Sarah for once was quite sorry for her—she got a little shawl to put over Philippa's feet as she lay beating a tattoo upon the sofa. As for Dolly, she had gone to bed early, very silent and out of spirits.
That evening's post brought a couple of letters; one was from George to his mother, written in his cranky, blotted handwriting:—
Cambridge: All Saints' College.
Dearest Mamma,—I am coming up for a couple of days. I have, strange as it may sound, been working too hard. Tell Aunt Sarah. Love to Dolly.
Yours affectionately,
George.
The other was for Dolly, and Marker took it up to her in her room. This letter flowed in even streams of black upon the finest hot-pressed paper:
Dearest Dora,—I was much disappointed that you would not come with me, and condemned me to that solitary walk. I hope that a day may come, before very long, when your duty and your pleasures may seem less at variance to you than at present; otherwise I can see little chance of happiness in our future life.
Yours,
R. V. H.