Volume One—Chapter Twelve.
Playing the Card.
The Reverend Arthur had removed the butterflies and wild flowers from his hat by the time Dr Bolter reached him, and was walking slowly up and down the study with his hands clasped behind him.
There was a wrinkled look of trouble in his face.
As the doctor entered he smilingly placed a chair for his friend, and seemed to make an effort to get rid of the feeling of oppression that weighed him down.
Then they sat and talked of butterflies and birds for a time, fencing as it were, for somehow Dr Bolter felt nervous and ill at ease, shrinking from the task which he had set himself, while the Reverend Arthur, though burning to ask several questions upon a subject nearest his heart, shrank from so doing lest he should expose his wound to his friend’s inquisitorial eyes.
“I declare I’m as weak as a child,” said the doctor to himself, after making several vain attempts at beginning. “It’s dreadfully difficult work!” and he asked his friend if the lesser copper butterfly was plentiful in that district.
“No,” said the Reverend Arthur, “we have not chalk enough near the surface.”
Then there was a pause—a painful pause—during which the two old friends seemed to be fighting hard to break the ice that kept forming between them.