It was decided on that evening that Sir Brook and Tom should set out for Dublin the next morning. Lucy knew not why this sudden determination had been come to, and Tom, who never yet had kept a secret from her, was now reserved and uncommunicative. Nor was it merely that he held aloof his confidence, but he was short and snappish in his manner, as though she had someway vexed him, and vexed him in some shape that he could not openly speak of or resent.
This was very new to her from him, and yet how was it? She had not courage to ask for an explanation. Tom was not exactly one of those people of whom it was pleasant to ask explanations., Where the matter to be explained might be one of delicacy, he had a way of abruptly blurting out the very thing one would have desired might be kept back. Just as an awkward surgeon will tear off the dressing, and set a wound a-bleeding, would he rudely destroy the work of time in healing by a moment of rash impatience. It was knowing this—knowing it well—that deterred Lucy from asking what might lead to something not over-agreeable to hear.
“Shall I pack your portmanteau, Tom?” asked she. It was a task that always fell to her lot.
“No; Nicholas can do it,—any one can do it,” said he, as he mumbled with an unlit cigar between his teeth.
“You used to say I always did it best, Tom,—that I never forgot anything,” said she, caressingly.
“Perhaps I did,—perhaps I thought so. Look here, Lucy,” said he, as though by an immense effort he had got strength to say what he wanted, “I am half vexed with you, if not more than half.”
“Vexed with me, Tom,—vexed with me! and for what?”
“I don't think that you need ask. I am inclined to believe that you know perfectly well what I mean, and what I would much rather not say, if you will only let me.”
“I do not,” said she, slowly and deliberately.
“Do you mean to say, Lucy,” said he, and his manner was almost stern as he spoke, “that you have no secrets from me, that you are as frank and outspoken with me today as you were three months ago?”