“Tom has been so sombre this last day or two,” she said to Manvers. “I hope you have been cheering him up.”
“I don’t think there is much the matter with him,” said Manvers. “He says he feels optimistic.”
“Manvers called me pessimistic,” remarked Tom; “but that is only a most flagrant instance of his own pessimism. He sees everything through his own spectacles.”
May raised her eyebrows.
“What frightfully contradictory accounts,” she said. “Oh, Tom, by the way, there is a man here who has come from the station to have the carriage of the Demeter paid. It is fifteen pounds. Surely that is an awful lot. I thought I had better ask you before I paid it.”
Manvers looked inquiringly at Tom.
“Have you the Demeter here?” he asked.
“Yes; I bought it back from Lord Henderson. He was very nice about it. He saw I really wanted it, and he let me have it for what he had paid for it. He bought it, you know, as a piece of cultured lumber, perhaps also as a species of charity, and he has sold it for charity. It came two days ago. I told them to unpack it this morning. Where have you had it put, May?”
“In your study, dear, where you said you wanted it. They unpacked it to-day. But surely fifteen pounds is too much for the carriage, Tom?”
Tom’s eyes wandered over the lawn, but came back to May.