'Robin represent Wilmet?' repeated Felix, scanning the plump, honest, sensible face, as that of his destined housewife; and not a bad prospect either practically, though without the charms that specially endeared Cherry.
She thought him absent, feared he had heard some fresh ill tidings of Edgar, and though reassured on that head, lost the zest she had caught up, and the selection was pretty well left to Robina.
There was no opportunity of confidential talk; the children were with them all the rest of the drive, and were to return with them to dinner; and that Angela was much shocked and subdued by the tidings of Edgar's flight did not conduce to privacy, since it silenced the tongue that generally sheltered any conversation! Nor could Felix succeed in hurrying his three ladies: they had a great deal still to do, and awe of Wilmet made them very particular in the doing of it, so that it was not till perilously near dinner-time that he brought them home, and there, on a hurried excursion to the drawing-room to notify the arrival, was Mr. Grinstead discovered. He had called, avowedly to wish Miss Underwood good-bye; and the mistress of the house, with perhaps an inkling of the state of affairs, had asked him to stay and dine. She could not help it, as she said, in excuse to her daughter, who always hated clever men, especially associated the sculptor with all the misery of the day of Alda's rupture with Ferdinand, and also wanted to have had Felix to herself this evening.
So she favoured the party with as little of her civility or conversation as possible; not that it was much missed, for Cherry was perfectly unsuspecting, and expanded into wit and animation as usual; and Mr. Grinstead, to Felix's surprise, was not rendered either silent or distrait by his suspense; and Felix himself had learnt conversation as a mechanical art in his trade, and could do his part, with cares and anxieties packed away.
After the ladies were gone, there only passed the words—
'Can I speak to her?'
'I will fetch her.'
'You have not prepared her?'
'I had not a moment.'
'Better so, perhaps.'