"You're a valiant man to visit me. This confounded disease is so infectious. You laugh? You'll cry if you get it! I've been as weak as a baby. If it had not been for Honeydew——"
He spoke enthusiastically of all his nurse had done for him. Archibald nodded absently, turning over in his mind certain possible themes which he wished Mark to consider.
"Yes, yes," he interrupted. "She did what she could, I make no doubt."
"She's one of the very best," cried Mark. "I say—it was awfully good of you, old Archie, to run down here. I expect work has piled up."
"It has; it has. I want to speak to you about that." He paused for a moment, as a smile flickered across Mark's lips. Archibald, Mark was reflecting, had an axe to grind. He had not left home merely to visit a brother laid by the heels. Suddenly his feeling which had flamed grew chill. He listened perfunctorily to some introductory remarks.
"My Lenten sermons are giving me grave anxiety; I find that something out of the common is expected. If you will bear with me, I'll walk over the—er—course which I've marked out."
"Cut along!" said Mark.
Archibald winced. Mark had no sense of the fitness of things. He spoke at times as if he (the Rector of St. Anne's) were a boy in his teens. Perhaps a word in season might——
"À propos," he said, with dignity, "don't you think, my dear fellow, that it is time for you to put away certain childish—you will pardon the adjective—certain childish expressions. It's absurd to talk of a man of my weight—'cutting along'...."
"True! You can stroll if you like, as the placid Pecksniff strolled. You have put on weight, Archie."