‘No!’ he said. ‘At least the walk is one of the few tolerable things there is. I’ll come as soon as I can escape, Phœbe. Past seven—I must go!’
‘Can’t you stay? I could find some food for you.’
‘No, thank you,’ he still said; ‘I do not know whether Mervyn will come home, and there must not be too many empty chairs. Good-bye!’ and he walked off with long strides, but with stooping shoulders, and an air of dejection almost amounting to discontent.
‘Poor Robin!’ said Honora, ‘I wish he could have stayed.’
‘He would have liked it very much,’ said Phœbe, casting wistful glances toward him.
‘What a pity he did not give notice of his intentions at home!’
‘He never will. He particularly dislikes—’
‘What?’ as Phoebe paused and coloured.
‘Saying anything to anybody,’ she answered with a little smile. ‘He cannot endure remarks.’
‘I am a very sober old body for a visit to me to be the occasion of remarks!’ said Honor, laughing more merrily than perhaps Robert himself could have done; but Phœbe answered with grave, straightforward sincerity, ‘Yes, but he did not know if Lucy might not be come home.’