Breakfast did not last long. Mr. Revell then engaged himself in assiduous study of the second day's Times, the only vestige of a paper which found its way into that forlorn place. Mrs. Tring departed to look after her household concerns, leaving her boarders to their usual chat in the back parlour, until their bed-rooms were ready for their reception.
Mrs. Merryweather began to unbend, and Cecil feared that her liveliness might prove more tiresome than her reserve. She was a great talker of inconceivable small talk; launched upon the endless sea of personal reminiscence, she told stories with all the minute detail of a professed conteur, excited attention by the ample paraphernalia of an anecdote, and baulked it by ending without a point. Of all bores, this species is the worst: it is the bore obtrusive and inevitable. Other bores can, with some adroitness, be managed, they do not unchain your attention; but the story-teller fastens upon your attention by artful preparations, and though you have been disappointed a hundred times, experience is of no use, for your interest is involuntarily accorded on every succeeding occasion.
To escape from the torrent of talk which was thus loosened upon him, Cecil sat down to the piano, and ran his fingers over the keys, after which he begged Miss Bachelor to favour the company with a taste of her quality. After the necessary hesitation and apologies, she sat down. From a teacher of music he anticipated a sort of railway rattle; but Miss Bachelor agreeably disappointed him by the modest execution of a sonata by Dussek: it was a mild, feeble, performance, unpretending as the performer, and infinitely preferable to Mrs. Merryweather's stories. He then sang a duet with Blanche, then a solo, and then another duet. This concluded, he observed that Mrs. Merryweather had retired, and he followed her example.
"I can't say much for our society," he said to his wife, as they went out for a stroll.
"We shall not see much of it, you know. We have our own room," replied Blanche.
"True; but while I am at work?"
"I can think of you!"
There was no reply to this, but to press the arm that leaned on his, closer to his side, and to look fondly in her loving face.
During their walk, they discussed their plans again with that inexhaustible interest which the future always has to the young and struggling; and they returned to dinner with a good appetite.
A significant smile was exchanged between Mrs. Merryweather and Miss Bachelor, and then between the ladies and Mr. Revell, as a handsome piece of ribs of beef was placed upon the table. Cecil noticed it, but failed to comprehend its meaning. He observed also that the hostess carved, and would by no means consent to his relieving her of the trouble; a procedure which the exiguity of the single slice placed upon each plate fully explained.