"A letter for you, Nansie," Mr. Loveday would say.
Taking it eagerly, she would speed to her room and read it again and again, drawing hopeful auguries from words in which none really lay. For although Kingsley's letters were cheerfully and lovingly written, there was nothing substantial in them in their prospects of the future. They were all of the present, of his doings, of his adventures, of his travels, of what he had seen and done, forming a kind of diary faithfully kept, but with a strange blindness in respect of years to come. At one time he was in France, at another in Italy, at another in Germany, at another in Russia.
"Mr. Seymour," he wrote, "has an insatiable thirst for travel, and will start off at an hour's notice from one country to another, moved seemingly by sudden impulses in which there appears to be an utter lack of system. It is inconvenient, but of course I am bound to accompany him; and there is, after all, in these unexpected transitions a charm to me, who could never be accused of being methodical. The serious drawback is that I am parted from you. What pleasure it would give me to have you by my side! And you would be no less happy than I."
Then would follow a description of the places they passed through and stopped at, of people they met, and of small adventures which afforded him entertainment, ending always with protestations of love, the sincerity of which could not be doubted. But Mr. Loveday was never anything than grave when Nansie read aloud to him extracts from her husband's letters.
"Who is Mr. Seymour?" he asked.
"A gentleman," replied Nansie.
"What is he, I mean?" was Mr. Loveday's next question.
Nansie shook her head. "I have no idea."
"Has your husband any idea?"
"I suppose he has."