But when the dinner-time came he really was sick with love,—or sick with disappointment. He felt that he could not eat his dinner under the battery of raillery which was always coming from Sir Magnus, and therefore he had told the servants that as the evening progressed he would have something to eat in his own room. And then he went out to wander in the dusk beneath the trees in the garden. Here he was encountered by Mr. Arbuthnot, with his dress boots and white cravat. "What the mischief are you doing here, old fellow?"
"I'm not very well. I have an awfully bilious headache."
"Sir Magnus is kicking up a deuce of a row because you're not there."
"Sir Magnus be blowed! How am I to be there if I've got a bilious headache? I'm not dressed. I could not have dressed myself for a five-pound note."
"Couldn't you, now? Shall I go back and tell him that? But you must have something to eat. I don't know what's up, but Sir Magnus is in a taking."
"He's always in a taking. I sometimes think he's the biggest fool out."
"And there's the place kept vacant next to Miss Mountjoy. Grascour wanted to sit there, but her ladyship wouldn't let him. And I sat next Miss Abbott because I didn't want to be in your way."
"Tell Grascour to go and sit there, or you may do so. It's all nothing to me." This he said in the bitterness of his heart, by no means intending to tell his secret, but unable to keep it within his own bosom.
"What's the matter, Anderson?" asked the other piteously.
"I am clean broken-hearted. I don't mind telling you. I know you're a good fellow, and I'll tell you everything. It's all over."