“Well, I would love to—” Here his eyes sought, Ruth—“but we have an important blast to make, and we are doing our best to get things into shape before the week is out.”
“Well, but suppose it isn't ready?” demanded Peter.
“But it will be,” answered Jack in a more positive tone; this part of the work was in his hands.
“Well, anyhow, send me a telegram.”
“I will send it, sir, but I am afraid it won't help matters. Miss Ruth knows how delighted I would be to return here and see her safe home.”
“Whether she does or whether she doesn't,” broke in Miss Felicia, “hasn't got a single thing to do with it, Peter. You just go back to your work, Mr. Breen, and look after your gunpowder plots, or whatever you call them, and if some one of these gentlemen of elegant leisure—not one of whom so far has offered his services—cannot manage to escort you to your father's house, Ruth, I will take you myself. Now come inside the drawing-room, every one of you, or you will all blame me for undermining your precious healths—you, too, Major, and bring your cigars with you. So you don't drop your ashes into my tea-caddy, I don't care where you throw them.”
It was late in the afternoon of the second day when the telegram arrived, a delay which caused no apparent suffering to any one except, perhaps, Peter, who wandered about with a “Nothing from Jack yet, eh?” A question which no one answered, it being addressed to nobody in particular, unless it was to Ruth, who had started at every ring of the door-bell. As to Miss Felicia—she had already dismissed the young man from her mind.
When it did arrive there was a slight flutter of interest, but nothing more; Miss Felicia laying down her book, Ruth asking in indifferent tones—even before the despatch was opened—“Is he coming?” and Morris, who was playing chess with Peter, holding his pawn in mid-air until the interruption was over.
Not so Peter—who with a joyous “Didn't I tell you the boy would keep his promise—” sprang from his chair, nearly upsetting the chess-board in his eagerness to hear from Jack, an eagerness shared by Ruth, whose voice again rang out, this time in an anxious tone,
“Hurry up, Uncle Peter—is he coming?”