“Indeed! And did Lady Royland confide in you?”
“Why, of course!” said Roy, quickly.
“Oh, yes,—of course! Her ladyship would do what is for the best. Well, let us to our reading. We have lost half an hour, and I am going to make it a little shorter this morning, for I thought of going across as far as the vicarage.”
“To see Master Meldew, sir?”
“Yes; of course. He has not been here lately. Now, then, where we left off,—it was about the Punic War, was it not?”
“Yes, sir; but don’t let’s have anything about war this morning.”
“Very well,” said the secretary; “let it be something about peace.”
It was something about peace, but what Roy did not know half an hour later, for his head was in a whirl, and his reading became quite mechanical. For there was the trouble his mother was in, her wishes as to his conduct, and his secret interview with Ben, to keep on buzzing in his brain, so that it was with a sigh of relief that he heard the secretary’s command to close his book, and he gazed at him wonderingly, asking himself whether the words were sarcastic, for Master Pawson said—
“I compliment you, Roy; you have done remarkably well, and been very attentive this morning. By the way, if her ladyship makes any remark about my absence, you can say that you expect Master Meldew has asked me to stay and partake of dinner with him.”
“Yes, sir.”