“Yes,” said Charley. “Mr Bray has taken a private box at Her Majesty’s for to-night, and will we have an early dinner with them and go?”
“My dear boy, I trust you will accept the invitation.”
“Do you wish me to, father?” said Charley.
“Yes, certainly,” cried Sir Philip; “but not in that dreadfully resigned spirit.”
“All right, sir!” said Charley, with a smile that he tried to make cheerful; and tossing the letter carelessly aside, he went on with his breakfast.
“You will write an answer, and send it by a commissionaire, of course?”
“No,” said Charley. “I’ll ride up there before lunch, and tell them. I want to see if my little maid Nelly has come back yet: she seems to make the Brays’ place more bearable when one goes there.”
Charley burst out laughing the next moment to see his father’s serious face.
“Well, really, my dear father,” he said, as he interpreted his look, “I how can you expect me to play the hypocrite?”
Sir Philip was troubled, but he said nothing; and soon after Charley retired to his own room, where, over a cigar, he sat turning about the various reports he had received from Branksome-street, wondering the while why none had come in the night before.