“Yes, of course I’m quite well—quite well, Jack; but a trifle—just a trifle low. I thought you’d stop with me, and take—take care of me a bit and put me right. I’m—I’m so lonely down here now.”
Lady Scarlett did not speak; but there was a quiver of the lip, and a look in her eyes as she turned them upon the doctor, that disarmed him.
“She does care for him,” he said to himself. “She must care for him.”
“I tell you what it is,” he said aloud; “you’ve been overdoing it in those confounded greenhouses of yours. Too much hot air, moist carbonic acid gas, and that sort of thing.—Lady Scarlett, he has been thinking a deal more of his melons than of his health.”
“Yes; he does devote a very, very great deal of attention to them,” assented Lady Scarlett eagerly.
“To be sure, and it is not good for him.—You must go up to town more and attend to business.”
“Yes, of course; I mean to—soon,” said Scarlett, with his eyes wandering from one to the other.
“Here, you must beg off with Lady Scarlett, and come up with me.”
“With you? What! to town?”
“To be sure; and we’ll have a regular round of dissipation: Monday pops; the opera; and Saturday concerts at the Crystal Palace. What do you say?”