“Poor little rabbit! It was such a little one!”
XII
On the afternoon of the day following he sat in the smoking-room with a prayer book in his hand, and a frown on his forehead, reading the Marriage Service. The book had been effectively designed for not spoiling the figure when carried in a pocket. But this did not matter, for even if he could have read the words, he would not have known what they meant, seeing that he was thinking how he could make a certain petition to a certain person sitting just behind at a large bureau with a sliding top, examining artificial flies.
He fixed at last upon this form:
“Gordy!” (Why Gordy no one quite knew now—whether because his name was George, or by way of corruption from Guardian.) “When Cis is gone it'll be rather awful, won't it?”
“Not a bit.”
Mr. Heatherley was a man of perhaps sixty-four, if indeed guardians have ages, and like a doctor rather than a squire; his face square and puffy, his eyes always half-closed, and his curly mouth using bluntly a voice of that refined coarseness peculiar to people of old family.
“But it will, you know!”
“Well, supposin' it is?”
“I only wondered if you'd mind asking Mr. and Mrs. Stormer to come here for a little—they were awfully kind to me out there.”