No answer was made, and muttering, "I shall never get him to hear me," he went boldly in. Even then, though it was a rare thing for any one to enter the study, Mr. Egerton took no notice of him, though Guy fancied he saw him at once.
"Father, can you attend to me for a moment? Clarice is out on the lawn, and she sent for me because some one had come up from the river to ask his way; but before I reached her, they had found out that he is our cousin, Villiers Egerton."
"Villiers—Aymer's boy? What brings him here?"
"I don't know, sir. I fancy it is an accident."
"Ay, I suppose so. I wish he had not come."
His face flushed crimson as he glanced at Guy, whose dress and hands bore evident marks of his late labours in the garden.
"How old is he? About your age, I think."
"About that, I think. Won't you come and see him, sir?"
"Yes, I suppose I must. It is an unlucky chance."
He looked down at his own dusty well-worn clothes, and said, "Can you get me a clothes-brush, Guy?"