But Luke must have gone further than the post. Ten minutes passed away and he had not returned.
"I do believe he has forgotten dinner," said Rachel, looking at Polly with a woe-begone face.
"It is a shame," said Polly, "and you've got such a nice one for him. It's just like the master; he don't think of himself a bit. He's thinking of them people."
And Luke, perfectly unconscious of the surprised distress he had left behind him, knowing that he was late for an engagement, hurried into a pastry cooks, bought a penny bun, and went off to his meeting, thinking to himself, "I must have a study somehow or other. It is impossible to do my work without it."
Should he suggest to Rachel to turn the little spare room into a study? No, that would prevent her having her sister to stay with her upon which, he knew, she had set her heart. He felt almost inclined to go to the extravagance of renting a room in the house where his mother lived. That was not a bad idea at all. He would talk it over with his mother.
When he returned home, to his surprise he found Rachel looking worried.
"Oh Luke," she said, as she glanced up from her work when he opened the door. "What have you been doing? Do you know that you have had no dinner and that Polly and I waited for ours till three o'clock, hoping that you would come. It is really too bad of you." Rachel was evidently ruffled.
"I've had lunch, so don't worry dear," he said, "I'm a bad boy I fear."
Rachel laughed.
"You are a very bad boy indeed," she said, "and don't a bit deserve to have a wife who has prepared a particularly nice dinner for you. But what have you had, and where did you have it?"