“But I shall be so unhappy about you, if you go all that long way back without food; come in, if it is only to please me.”
Something in her tone touched him, and at that moment the door was opened by Mr. Boniface himself.
“Why, Cecil,” he cried. “We have been quite anxious about you.”
“Frithiof saw me home because of the fog,” she explained. “And our hansom was overturned at Battersea, so we have had to walk from there. Please ask Frithiof to come in, father, we are so dreadfully cold and hungry, yet he will insist on going straight home.”
“It’s not to be thought of,” said Mr. Boniface. “Come in, come in, I never saw such a fog.”
So once more Frithiof found himself in the familiar house which always seemed so homelike to him, and for the first time since his disgrace he shook hands with Mrs. Boniface; she was kindness itself, and yet somehow the meeting was painful and Frithiof wished himself once more in the foggy streets. Cecil seemed intuitively to know how he felt, for she talked fast and gayly as though to fill up the sense of something wanting which was oppressing him.
“I am sure we are very grateful to you,” said Mrs. Boniface, when she had heard all about the adventure, and his rescue of Cecil. “I can’t think what Cecil would have done without you. As for Roy, finding it so foggy and having a bad headache, he came home early and is now gone to bed. But come in and get warm by the fire. I don’t know why we are all standing in the hall.”
She led the way into the drawing-room, and Cecil gave a cry of astonishment, for, standing on the hearth-rug was a little figure in a red dressing-gown, looking very much like a wooden Noah in a toy ark.
“Why, Lance,” she cried, “you up at this time of night!”
The little fellow flew to meet her and clung round her neck.