“Speculation!” Mrs. Heriton repeated, looking really alarmed.
He laughed.
“I shouldn’t have used that expression. I know what a terrible sound it has in your ears. But there is not the slightest cause for uneasiness. It is a flourishing company I have joined, and I shall more than double what I have risked. For Florence’s sake, love, you ought to be pleased. It is for our child’s interests I try to increase our fortune.”
Mrs. Heriton tried to appear satisfied, but failed so signally that her husband’s irritability returned.
“Are we not to dine at all to-day? Really, Emma, there is strange mismanagement somewhere!”
Before she could reply the signal was given, and he led her to the dining room, where they were speedily joined by Frank. His apologies for the delay somewhat appeased his host’s ill humor, and he chatted cheerfully till the removal of the cloth.
But Mrs. Heriton’s keener eye detected that the young man was not in his usual spirits, and when she returned to the drawing room her questions quickly drew from the ingenuous Florence a recital of what had occurred.
She was lying back on her couch, still quivering with grateful emotion, and caressing the beloved one who had been in such peril, when the gentlemen joined them. A servant had been sent to the nearest town for letters, and Mr. Heriton was unusually eager to examine the bag. But there was nothing in it for him except a few notes and circulars of no importance, and he sat drumming on the table, and sipping his coffee, while Frank Dormer opened the two addressed to himself.
From one of his correspondents—a college acquaintance, who was enjoying a few months of London life—he was in the habit of receiving many little bits of town gossip, which he was so accustomed to read aloud, that when he closed his letter Florence exclaimed:
“What! No news to-night, Mr. Dormer?”