“What prevents him?”
“Well, I believe the poor old chap is heartily ashamed of his airs. Indeed he as good as said so. He has been longing to make a fresh start, only he didn’t know how.”
“I think he used you very ill, Jock; but if you wish to be on the old terms, I will do as you like.”
“Well,” said Jock, in an odd apologetic voice, “you see the old beggar had got into a pig-headed sort of pet last year. He said he would cut me if I left the service, and so he felt bound to be as good as his word; but he seems to have felt lost without us, and to have been looking out for a chance of meeting. He was horribly humiliated by the Friar looking over his head last week.”
“Very well. If he chooses to call, here we are.”
“Yes, and don’t put on your cold shell, mother mine. After all, Evelyn is Evelyn. There are wiser fellows, but I shall never warm to any one again like him. Why, he was the first fellow who came into my room at Eton! I am to meet him to-morrow after the lecture. May I bring him home?”
“If he likes. His mother’s son must have a welcome.”
She could not feel cordial, and she so much expected that the young gentleman might be seized with a fresh fit of exclusive disdain, that she would not mention the possibility, and it was an amazement to all save herself when Jock appeared with the familiar figure in his wake. Guardsman as he was, Cecil had the grace to look bashful, not to say shamefaced, and more so at Mrs. Brownlow’s kindly reception, than at Barbara’s freezing dignity. The young lady was hotly resentful on Jock’s behalf, and showed it by a stiff courtesy, elevated eyebrows, and the merest tips of her fingers.
Allen took it easily. He had been too much occupied with his own troubles to have entered into all the complications with the Evelyn family; and though he had never greatly cared for them, and had viewed Cecil chiefly as an obnoxious boy, he was, in his mournful way, gratified by any reminder of his former surroundings. So without malice prepense he stung poor Cecil by observing that it was long since they had met; but no one could be expected to find the way to the other end of nowhere. Cecil blushed and stammered something about Hounslow, but Allen, who prided himself on being the conversational man of the world, carried off the talk into safe channels.
As Cecil was handing Mrs. Brownlow down to the dining-room, wicked Barbara whispered to her cousin John—