Theodora smiled. ‘I hope we may meet sometimes,’ said she. ‘If my sister was down-stairs perhaps we might; but I am engaged to her.’
Thus ended the visit, and Arthur, hastily throwing the cushions back into their places, demanded, ‘What on earth could possess those folks to come here now!’
‘It was an inconvenient time,’ said Theodora.
‘Dawdling and loitering here!—a man with nothing better to do with his time!’
‘Nay,’ said Theodora, touched by the injustice; ‘Lord St. Erme is no man not to know how to dispose of his time.’
‘Whew!’ whistled Arthur; ‘is the wind gone round to that quarter? Well, I thought better of you than that you would like a fellow that can do nothing but draw, never shoots over his own moors, and looks like a German singer! But do put the room tidy; and if you must have the nursery down here, put it into the back room, for mercy sake!’
He went away, having thus stirred her feelings in the St. Erme direction, and he left them to take their chance for the rest of the day. She took a solitary walk; on her return saw a hat in the hall, and asking whether Mr. Harding was there, was told no, but that Mr. Gardner was with Captain Martindale. And after long waiting till Arthur should come to dinner, he only put in his head, saying, ‘Oh, Theodora, are you waiting? I beg your pardon, I am going out to dinner. You can sit with Violet; and if she should want me, which she won’t, James knows where to find me.’
Theodora scorned to inquire of the servant whither his master was gone; but her appetite forsook her at the sight of the empty chair, and the recollection of the warning against Mark Gardner.
This was not her last solitary dinner. Arthur had engagements almost every day, or else went to his club; and when at home, if he was not with Violet, he sat in his own room, and would never again assist at the sittings, which were completed under less favourable auspices, soon enough to allow time for the framing before the mamma should come down-stairs. Her recovery proceeded prosperously; and Theodora was quite sufficiently in request in her room to be satisfied, and to make it difficult to find a spare afternoon to go and order one of her favourite oak frames.
However, she was at length able to make the expedition; and she was busy in giving directions as to the width of margin, when from the interior of the shop there came forward no other than the Earl of St. Erme.