"This is jolly," said Father Gray, "we were just coming to see you. This is my friend, Lord Frederick Calvert. How are you getting on? Well! Oh, I'm so glad. You did excellent service for us in the Church Chimes; that Protestant paper was dreadfully venomous. Now, what do you say to the hotel and lunch?"
"I should like it of all things. Where are you staying?"
"At the Charing Cross, just over the road."
"Right you are. If you will go on I will join you in a moment; I just want to go to the post."
He went to the office at the corner, and sent off a wire to Sturtevant, not being able to resist elevenpence-halfpennyworth of epigram.
"Everything comes to him who can't wait. Keep away from my rooms, have met our worthy friends.—G."
The lunch party was bright and enjoyable. Lord Frederick did not talk much, but Gobion did, and the clergyman treated him most affectionately, paying the greatest attention to his remarks. The young fellow, who was aching to see a little life, and taste some of the joys hitherto forbidden, looked on Gobion as a being from another world, charmed and fascinated by his manner and conversation. He hoped that perhaps he might be able to make him the excuse for a little more freedom.
At the end of the meal a waiter came up with a telegram in his hand, "Rrreverrend Grray, sir?" he said. The clergyman read the flimsy pink paper, his face growing very serious as he did so.
"My dear Lord Frederick," he said, "I am so very sorry. My great friend Stanley, of the C.B.S., is dying up in Scotland and asking for me. I must leave you for a day or two, I fear. Do you mind? Gobion, perhaps, would not mind keeping you company a little."