'Could you afford it, Felix?'
'I must afford it! Such work as yours has been of late is the most expensive of all. Eh!' rather startled; 'have you anything in your head?'
'I hardly know.'
A message came in at the moment, and by the time Felix had answered it, Lance had vanished, rather to his vexation and uneasiness. He went up to supper, the first family meeting where there had been time to talk over the humours of the day before. Edgar was full of fun; and the report Cherry had been writing for the Pursuivant was read aloud in the family conclave, and freely canvassed, but Lance, though he put in a word or two here and there, was much quieter than usual; and when all the others moved back into the drawing-room, he touched Robina's arm, and kept her with him in the dark room.
'What should you say, Bob, if I got out of it all?' was his first word.
'Out of it all!'
'Ay. Felix thinks me no loss, and I've got a chance.'
'Oh!' a long interrogative not well pleased sound it was, not answered at once; and Robina added, 'Does Mr. Miles want an assistant?'
''Tisn't that sort. You saw the gentleman that came down with Edgar and the Hungarians?'
'Yes, his name is Allen, he is manager of the National Minstrelsy,' Edgar said.