“Just listen to me patiently, Jack. Listen to me for one moment.”
“Not for half a moment. I can guess everything you want to say to me, and I tell you frankly, I don't care to hear it. Tell me whatever you like to-morrow—”
He tried to finish his speech, but his voice grew thick and faltering, and he turned away and was silent.
They spoke little to each other as they walked homewards. A chance remark on the weather, or the scenery, was all that passed till they reached the little lawn before the door.
“You'll not forget your pledge, Jack, for to-morrow?” said Ellen, as he turned towards her before ascending the steps.
“I 'll not forget it,” said he, coldly, and he moved off as he spoke, and entered an alley of the shrubbery.
CHAPTER XVIII. A DULL DINNER.
The family dinner on that day at Castello was somewhat dull. The various attempts to secure a party for the ensuing Saturday, which had been fixed on to celebrate Jack's promotion, had proved failures. When Temple arrived at Longworth's he learned that the host and 'his guest were from home and not to return for some days—we have seen how it fared as to the L'Estranges—so that the solitary success was Captain Craufurd, a gentleman who certainly had not won the suffrages of the great house.
There were two vacant places besides at the table; for butlers are fond of recording, by napkins and covers, how certain of our friends assume to treat us, and thus, as it were, contrast their own formal observances of duty with the laxer notions of their betters.