Robert Streightley started as though he had been shot. What else could he have expected? Did he anticipate a few tender words of regret at his necessitated absence; a tear or two dimming the bright eyes; a little pouting or peevishness at being left alone? Did he imagine that his wife might have made some inquiry as to the nature of the business which caused him to absent himself for twenty-four hours from his home? Such might have been the case in those preposterous matches which are arranged thoughtlessly and frivolously by two young people without calling their elders into council--in those ridiculous unions of hearts. But there was nothing in Robert Streightley's bargain, no clause in his bond, to warrant his expectation of any thing of the kind. "To have and to hold," certainly; but to create sympathy, to awaken interest--no mention of either of these superfluities in the marriage-contract. So he simply said, "Yes, dear; business;" and laid his lips to her cheek, and ordered his clothes to be packed, and drove away to the station.
He was uncomfortable, vacillating, wretched, all through the journey; but he became his old self as he entered his offices. As the door of his private room closed behind him, as he marked the letters lying unopened on his desk, as he took his seat in the birch-framed, cane-bottomed chair which had been his seat ever since he first assumed his junior partnership, and as he saw old Foster standing at his elbow, with his paper of memoranda in his hand ready to read from,--Robert Streightley felt more genuine pleasure than he had for months. The mere fact of there being a difficulty--a hitch--something towards the elucidation of which the play of his business talents might tend--gave him life; the gaudia certaminis inspired him; and he set to work with such a zest, that old Foster, who had been shaking his head dolefully for the past few months, and thinking to himself--he would not have breathed such an opinion for the world--that the glories of the great house of Streightley and Son were on the wane, took fresh heart, and indulged that evening in the enormity of an extra half-pint of stout at the chop-house where he took his dinner, in token of his delight.
Robert Streightley had not been more than a couple of hours at work, when a junior clerk entered, and told him that Mr. Guyon was outside in a cab, and had called to know if Mr. Streightley was in town. Bidden to show Mr. Guyon in, the junior clerk retired, immediately returning with Mr. Guyon, looking ten years younger than when Robert had last seen him; with his brown-black whiskers, and hair a little red-rusty from travel; with the strong trace of a silvery beard; with a rakish Glengarry cap on his head, a travelling suit and a courier's bag on his body. He entered with his usual impulsive bound, and had Streightley by both hands almost before the latter knew he had entered.
"The merest chance, my dear Robert,--the merest chance that I should have called in to-day. Returning from Paris by the tidal, and having to stop at that most confounded of all confounded stations, London Bridge, and having to go through this cursed City,--no offence to you, my dear boy, but it's a dreadful hole,--I thought I'd just drop in and see whether you were in town."
Mr. Streightley assured Mr. Guyon--a somewhat supererogatory assurance--that he was in town, adding--of which there was no such corroborative testimony--that he was glad to see him.
"And Katharine?" asked Mr. Guyon, carefully smoothing his chin with his hand, and looking up under his eye-glass at his son-in-law,--"Katharine is well?"
Katharine was quite well, Mr. Streightley thanked Mr. Guyon.
Mr. Guyon devoutly thanked heaven for that news. All the traces of that horrible--eh? at Martigny--quite gone, eh? Thought he should never have been able to dress himself that morning when he opened Streightley's note about Katharine's illness. His man thought he was going to have a fit, and wanted to hasten for a doctor. Told the man he was a consummate ass; that what he, Mr. Guyon, was suffering from was feelings; and what the devil did he, the man, know about them! And Katharine was well; and their place, Middlemeads--eh?--was perfection? O, he'd heard it here, there, and every where. Saw Roger Chevers at Boulogne, en passant, and had heard him say what a lovely place it was, and how leaving it had smashed up his old governor, root and branch. He was always talking of it, sir--said Roger--and wondering whether they'd cut into the avenue, or whether they left that view clear top of Two-Ash Hill, looking out the south way; or whether they'd put the stables in order, or built others where the Red Barn stood. That's what he should have done, if that cursed Brazilian mine had only turned up trumps! "Poor old Gov! he'll never forget Middlemeads!" said honest Roger, who drowned all thought of his lost patrimony in cheap brandy and the delights of perpetual pool, and dances at the Etablissement des Bains.
Ignoring the opinions and speculations of Mr. Roger Chevers, Robert Streightley acknowledged that Middlemeads was a fine place, and that he thought it had improved since it had been in his hands.
"Of course, my dear Robert, of course!" said Mr. Guyon; "your princely munificence, and what I think I may say--although my own child is in question--Katharine's excellent taste, would be certain to do wonders for any place to which both could be simultaneously applied. Allez, toujours, la jeunesse! a French phrase which is roughly but not inadequately rendered by our own maxim of 'Go it while you're young!' As for me, I'm an old bird--an old bird, begad, come back to an empty nest, to find the sticks and the straw and all that, but my young fledgling flown." Mr. Guyon seemed quite affected at the allusion which he had thus made, and turned away his head, touching his eyes lightly with his handkerchief.