“Hah, yes; I’m just going over there.”
“He is very bad, you say?”
“Bad! I expect to find him gone.”
The doctor nodded, and left the room.
“Bah! how I do hate them,” said Glyddyr. “I’d have walked down with him, but I always feel as if I were smelling physic.”
Glyddyr stood tapping the bottom of his watch, which he had just taken from his pocket, as he talked in a low tone, just as if he were conversing with the little round face before him.
“How wild the old boy was—just after he had been talking to me as he had. Pshaw! I don’t mind. Rustic bit of courtship. Half-bumpkin sort of fellow, and poor as Job. Old man wouldn’t have him at any price. The gipsy! Been carrying on with him, then, eh? Well, it’s always the way with your smooth, drooping little violets. Regular flirtation. I don’t mind. I wouldn’t give a dump for a girl without a bit of spirit in her. It’s all right. Friends at court—a big friend at court. But no more fits for friends—at present, I hope. I’ll get him to come on a cruise, and bring her. Tell the old boy it will do him good. Get the doctor on my side, and make him prescribe a trip round the islands, with him to come as medical attendant. Nothing to do, and unlimited champagne. Real diplomacy. By Jupiter, Parry, you are a clever one, though you do get most awfully done on the turf!”
“Yes,” he said, after another look at the watch, for the purpose now of seeing the time, “that’s the plan—a long sea trip round the islands, with sentiment, sighs and sunsets; and, as they said in the old melodramas, ‘Once aboard the lugger, she is mine.’ For, lugger read steam yacht, schooner-rigged Fair Star, of Cowes; Parry Glyddyr, owner.”
He laughed in a low, self-satisfied way, and then moved toward the door.
“Well, it’s of no use to wait here,” he said. “They will not show up again. I can call, though, as often as I like. Come again this evening, and see her then. She can’t refuse. I’ll go now and see how the salmon fisher is getting on.”