Mr. Bradfield turned in his seat, as if to have another look at the man; but they had turned a corner, and he was out of sight.
“Did he, though?” said he, as if in surprise. “Well, I daresay he’ll find me out, if he wants anything of me. People have a trick of doing that.” Then, as if dismissing the subject from his thoughts, he said, “Well, haven’t I been ‘good?’ Will you come out with me again?”
Chris laughed with some constraint. Mr. Bradfield certainly had behaved well, but she did not want to put his good behaviour to any further tests. There was about him all the time a certain air of an angler playing his fish, which made her ask herself whether she were not in truth compromising herself by receiving from him even those attentions, slight as they were, which she could not avoid.
They reached home before the rest of the party, and Chris ran upstairs to her mother, while Mr. Bradfield went to his study. Stelfox, who made himself useful about the house when he was not in attendance upon Mr. Richard, was just placing upon the table a great pile of letters. This being Christmas eve, the mid-day post had been some hours late.
Mr. Bradfield glanced searchingly at Stelfox. He was rather afraid of that faithful servitor, who was too useful a person, and perhaps too shrewd a one, to be dismissed. Manners, the weak-eyed secretary, was away for his holiday, so that master and man were alone. After a few moments’ rapid debate with himself, Mr. Bradfield asked a question which had been very near his lips since the night before, when Lilith’s communication had made him uneasy.
“How is your patient to-day, Stelfox?” he asked, as an opening.
“About the same as usual, sir.”
“Been giving you much trouble lately?”
“Not more than usual, sir.”
“And that’s not much, eh?”