“On Wednesday week last.”
“The very day O'Shea started.”
They each looked steadfastly at the other; and at last Agincourt said,—
“Would n't that be a strange solution of the riddle, Charley? On the last night we dined together you may remember I promised to try what I could make of the negotiation; and so I praised the widow, extolled her beauty, and hinted that she was exactly the clever sort of woman that helps a man on to fortune.”
“How I wish I had gone to India!” muttered Charles, and so immersed in his own cares as not to hear one word the other was saying.
“If I were to talk in that way, Charley, you 'd be the very first to call out, What selfishness! what an utter indifference to all feelings but your own! You are merely dealing with certain points that affect yourself, and you forget a girl that loves you.”
“Am I so sure of that? Am I quite certain that an old attachment—she owned to me herself that she liked him, that tutor fellow of yours—has not a stronger hold on her heart than I have? There 's a letter from him. I have n't opened it I have a sort of half suspicion that when I do read it I 'll have a violent desire to shoot him. It is just as if I knew that, inside that packet there, was an insult awaiting me, and yet I 'd like to spare myself the anger it will cause me when I break the seal; and so I walk round the table and look at the letter, and turn it over, and at last—” With the word he tore open the envelope, and unfolded the note. “Has he not given me enough of it? One, two, three, ay, four pages! When a man writes at such length, he is certain to be either very tiresome or very disagreeable, not to say that I never cared much for your friend Mr. Layton; he gave himself airs with us poor unlettered folk—”
“Come, come, Charley; if you were not in an ill mood, you 'd never say anything so ungenerous.”
It was possible that he felt the rebuke to be just, for he did not reply, but, seating himself in the window, began to read the letter. More than once did Agincourt make some remark, or ask some question. Of even his movements of impatience Heathcote took no note, as, deeply immersed in the contents of the letter, he continued to read on.
“Well, I'll leave you for a while, Charley,” said he, at last; “perhaps I may drop in to see you this evening.”