“Have you dined? How did you come? Let me order you some dinner.”
“If you’re going to have any. Otherwise, you know, there is no one who cares less for eating than I do. But where are the others? Gone out to dinner? Left you alone?”
“Oh yes! and it is such a rest. I was just thinking—But will you run the risk of dinner? I don’t know if there is anything in the house.”
“Why, to tell you the truth, I dined at my club. Only they don’t cook as well as they did, so I thought, if you were going to dine, I might try and make out my dinner. But never mind, never mind! There aren’t ten cooks in England to be trusted at impromptu dinners. If their skill and their fires will stand it, their tempers won’t. You shall make me some tea, Margaret. And now, what were you thinking of? you were going to tell me. Whose letters were those, god-daughter, that you hid away so speedily?”
“Only Dixon’s,” replied Margaret, growing very red.
“Whew! is that all? Who do you think came up in the train with me?”
“I don’t know,” said Margaret, resolved against making a guess.
“Your what d’ye call him? What’s the right name for a cousin-in-law’s brother?”
“Mr. Henry Lennox?” asked Margaret.
“Yes,” replied Mr. Bell. “You knew him formerly, didn’t you? What sort of a person is he, Margaret?”