“Whom do you think he looks like, Richard?” she asked. This was a question she had never asked before since the child was born. Whom the child looked like every one knew; but within the past year and a half Francis Armour’s name had seldom been mentioned, and never in connection with the child. The child’s mother asked the question with a strange quietness. Richard answered it without hesitation.
“The child looks like Frank,” he said. “As like him as can be.”
“I am glad,” she said, “for all your sakes.”
“You are very deep this morning, Lali,” Richard said, with a kind of helplessness. “Frank will be pretty proud of the youngster when he comes back. But he won’t be prouder of him than I am.”
“I know that,” she said. “Won’t you be lonely without the boy—and me, Richard?”
Again the question went home. “Lonely? I should think I would,” he said. “I should think I would. But then, you see, school is over, and the master stays behind and makes up the marks. You will find London a jollier master than I am, Lali. There’ll be lots of shows, and plenty to do, and smart frocks, and no end of feeds and frolics; and that is more amusing than studying three hours a day with a dry old stick like me. I tell you what, when Frank comes—”
She interrupted him. “Do not speak of that,” she said. Then, with a sudden burst of feeling, though her words were scarcely audible: “I owe you everything, Richard—everything that is good. I owe him nothing, Richard—nothing but what is bitter.”
“Hush, hush,” he said; “you must not speak that way. Lali, I want to say to you—”
At that moment General Armour, Mrs. Armour, and Marion appeared on the door-step, and the carriage came wheeling up the drive. What Richard intended to say was left unsaid. The chances were it never would be said.
“Well, well,” said General Armour, calling down at them, “escort his imperial highness to the chariot which awaits him, and then ho! for London town. Come along, my daughter,” he said to Lali; “come up here and take the last whiff of Greyhope that you will have for six months. Dear, dear, what lunatics we all are, to be sure! Why, we’re as happy as little birds in their nests out in the decent country, and yet we scamper off to a smoky old city by the Thames to rush along with the world, instead of sitting high and far away from it and watching it go by. God bless my soul, I’m old enough to know better! Well, let me help you in, my dear,” he added to his wife; “and in you go, Marion; and in you go, your imperial highness”—he passed the child awkwardly in to Marion; “and in you go, my daughter,” he added, as he handed Lali in, pressing her hand with a brusque fatherliness as he did so. He then got in after them.