Mr. Etheridge eyed him in his usual grave, abstracted way.
"You are the last person I should have accused of a love of the romantic," he said.
"Then there was Frank," added Jasper, in a lower voice, but not too low to reach Stella, for whom the addition was intended; "he wanted a change, and he would not have come without Stella."
They entered the cottage, in the tiny sitting-room of which Mrs. Penfold had already set the tea.
Frank was lying on a sofa whose metallic hardness had been mitigated by cushions and pillows; and certainly if he was pulling up his strength, as Jasper asserted, it was at a very slow rate.
He looked thinner than ever, and there was a dark ring under his eyes which made the hectic flush still more beautiful by contrast than when we saw him last. He greeted their entrance with a smile at Stella, and a cold evasive glance at Jasper. She went and smoothed the pillow at his head; but, as if ashamed that the other should see his weakness, he rose and walked to the door.
The old man eyed him sadly, but smiled with affected cheerfulness.
"Well, Frank, how do you feel to-night? You must be well to the front to-morrow, you know, or you will not be the best man!"
Frank looked up with a sudden flush, then set down without a word.