'Chilvers?—No.'
'Mrs. Morton tells us that all the Church newspapers ring with his name.'
'Please don't think,' cried Mrs. Morton, with the same anxious look as before, 'that I read such papers. We never have such a thing in our house, Mr. Peak. I have only been told about it.'
Peak smiled gravely, but made no other answer. Then he turned to Earwaker.
'Where is he?'
'I can't say. Perhaps Mrs. Morton'—
'They tell me he is somewhere in Norfolk,' replied the lady. 'I forget the town.'
A summons to dinner broke off the conversation. Moxey offered his arm to the one lady present as guest, and Earwaker did the same courtesy to the hostess. Mr. Morton, a meditative young man who had been listening with a smile of indifference, sauntered along in the rear with Godwin Peak.
At the dinner-table Peak was taciturn, and seemed to be musing on a disagreeable subject. To remarks, he answered briefly and absently. As Moxey, Earwaker, and Mrs. Morton kept up lively general talk, this muteness was not much noticed, but when the ladies had left the room, and Peak still frowned over his wineglass, the journalist rebuked him.
'What's the matter with you? Don't depress us.'