The boy's badinage, Nell's half-shy delight, filled Drake with joy; even Mrs. Lorton's folly only amused him. He leaned back and drank his tea and ate his toast—he knew that Nell had made it, and every morsel was sweet to him—with a feeling of happiness too deep for words. And yet there was anxiety mixed with his happiness. Was the delight only that which would arise in the heart of a young girl, a child, at the visit of a friend?
"Shall we go down and look at the boat?" he asked, after he had dutifully listened to some more of Mrs. Lorton's remarks on fashion and nobility.
"Right you are!" said Dick; "and if you will promise to behave yourself like a decent member of society, you shall come too, Nell. You won't mind my bringing my little sister, sir?"
Drake smiled, but the smile died away as they walked down to the jetty; he could have dispensed with the presence of Nell's little brother.
"We might go for a short sail, mightn't we?" he said, as they stood looking at the boat. "Pity you didn't bring your gun, Dick!"
"Oh, I can fetch it!" said Dick promptly. "I shan't be ten minutes."
Drake waved to Brownie to bring the Annie Laurie to the steps, and helped Nell into the boat; then ran up the sail, and pushed off.
"Aren't we going to wait for Dick?" said Nell innocently.
"Oh, we'll just cruise about till he comes," said Drake. "Let me take the tiller."
He steered the boat for the bay, and lit his pipe. It was just as if he had not left Shorne Mills; and, as he looked around at the multicolored cliffs, the sky dyed by the setting sun with vivid hues of crimson and yellow, and at Nell's lovely and happy face, he thought of the world in which he had moved last night; and its hollowness and falsity, its restless pursuit of pleasure, its selfish interests appalled him. He had resolved, or only half resolved, perhaps, last night, that he would "cut it"—leave it forever. Why shouldn't he? Why should he go back?