CHAPTER XL.
"The sense of death is most in apprehension."
"Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure."
It is destined to be a day of grief! Monkton who had been out all the morning, having gone to see the old people, a usual habit of his, had not returned to dinner—a very unusual habit with him. It had occurred, however, once or twice, that he had stayed to dine with them on such occasions, as when Sir George had had a troublesome letter from his elder son, and had looked to the younger to give him some comfort—some of his time to help him to bear it, by talking it all over. Barbara, therefore, while dressing for Mrs. Thesiger's "At Home," had scarcely felt anxiety, and, indeed, it is only now when she has come down to the drawing-room to find Joyce awaiting her, also in gala garb, so far as a gown goes, that a suspicion of coming trouble takes possession of her.
"He is late, isn't he?" she says, looking at Joyce with something nervous in her expression. "What can have kept him? I know he wanted to meet the General, and now——What can it be?"
"His mother, probably," says Joyce, indifferently. "From your description of her, I should say she must be a most thoroughly uncomfortable old person."
"Yes. Not pleasant, certainly. A little of her, as George Ingram used to say, goes a long way. But still——And these Thesiger people are friends of his, and——"
"You are working yourself up into a thorough belief in the sensational street accident," says Joyce, who has seated herself well out of the glare of the chandelier. "You want to be tragic. It is a mistake, believe me."
Something in the bitterness of the girl's tone strikes on her sister's ear. Joyce had not come down to dinner, had pleaded a headache as an excuse for her non-appearance, and Mrs. Monkton and Tommy (she could not bear to dine alone) had devoured that meal à deux. Tommy had certainly been anything but dull company.