"Let you be quiet! You don't think I'd bother you, do you? Cup of tea, indeed. You'll want more than a cup of tea if you go on in this way, sitting up till all hours and fagging yourself over your business. I'm sure your 'ma and Miss Ellen will think you looking quite ill, when they come back from York; and it's all that dratted office as is doing it. I should like to see any body else who sticks to it as you do, and all for what--that's what I want to know? All for what? If you was a struggling on with nine children to educate and do for, you couldn't grind at it harder than you do; and you'll find it out sooner than you expect. Ah, Robert!" exclaimed the old woman, suddenly softening in her tone, and coming up close to him, "Robert, my own dear boy, don't be so headstrong, deary; don't work your life away in this fashion. There's no one knows you so well as I do, and I see you're doing too much, and you're beginning to show it. Don't work so hard, my boy, my own dear boy!"
Robert Streightley put up his big arm and pulled down the old woman's head, and pressed her hard rough cheek, down which the tears were flowing silently, close to his own. Then, with an affectation of cheerfulness, he said:
"Why, Alice! why, nurse! you must not fancy such foolish things, old lady. I am perfectly well and hearty; only a little done-up this morning, perhaps, after an extra pressure of business yesterday, which kept me up rather later than usual, but otherwise all right."
"I'm a foolish old woman, I know, Robert; but I love you very dearly, and you're all I've left to love; and when you don't come home, I get frightened and nervous, and fancy you're doing too much, and, that you ought to be here, in the dining-room, reading your newspaper or having your little nap, as usual, in the evenings, instead of working away at that horrible office to all hours. And you won't be home to-day again, I suppose?"
"O yes, indeed I shall! What made you think that?"
"Why, you've got on that blue frock-coat, and a white waistcoat, and your best cravat; just for all as you dress yourself when you go to them ship-launches, or Greenwich dinners of your companies, or other places which keep you away from where you're best--at your own home."
Streightley smiled, rather a ghastly smile, as he said: "O no I'm only going to call on some rather particular people who--it's best to--at all events--I mean who are accustomed to something different from us--City fellows, you know!"
It was feebly said, and feebly received by old Alice, who looked very grim, and only remarked: "Ay, ay--ay, ay!"
He made but a very poor apology for a breakfast, and said not a great deal more to his old friend, who stood by, vainly hoping for that "chat" with her boy which was the prime event of her day. But this morning Robert Streightley was preoccupied; he sat over the table long after he had finished eating, idly playing with the crumbs, and evidently buried in thought. At length he roused himself, and after referring several times nervously to his watch, he started for town.
It was his habit to go by omnibus; and from his long residence at Brixton he was known to all the coachmen on the road, each of whom on passing gave him a semi-respectful semi-inviting salutation. But Robert Streightley was not inclined for an omnibus-ride this morning; he felt somehow that such a mode of conveyance would not accord with the world a glimpse of which he had had on the previous day, nor with the errand on which he was proceeding; so he hailed the first disengaged hansom, and was driven rapidly to Queen Anne Street. So rapidly, that when he alighted from the cab at the corner of the street he found it yet wanted twelve minutes of eleven, the hour he had named for his interview with Mr. Guyon. He could not be before his time; that would be as much against the strict business rule in which he had been brought up as being behind it would argue either leisure or a strong interest in the matter then on hand, and neither supposition he thought advisable in respect to him. So he determined to eke out the time; and for that purpose strolled up a side street, and found himself gazing vacantly on the dressing and exercising of horses and the washing of carriages, in a mews, at the entrance to which he stood for some little time. After walking round and round, and circling a very narrowed square, he found that the back part of Mr. Guyon's house looked into this mews; and then he busied himself with wondering which was Miss Guyon's room, and whether she were there at that time, and whether she had thought of him since the interview in the City, and what she had thought of him, and---- And then looking at his watch, he found the eventful hour had arrived; so he walked boldly round, and, ringing the bell, demanded to see Mr. Guyon.