"It is too cold. Northerly aspect—no shelter—three hundred feet above
York minster."
"But Dorothy Mercer is such a kind motherly creature; she'd delight in nursing Lotta."
"Yes," answered Mr. Sheldon, with a laugh, "and in quacking her. I know what those good motherly creatures are when they get an excuse for dosing some unhappy victim with their quack nostrums. If Charlotte went to Newhall, Mrs. Mercer would poi—would make her ten times worse than she is with old woman's remedies. Besides, as I said before, the place is too cold. That is a conclusive argument, I suppose?"
He said this with some impatience of tone and manner. There was a haggard look in his face, a hurried harassed manner pervading him this evening, which had been growing upon him of late. Georgy was too slow of perception to remark this; but Diana Paget had remarked it, and had attributed the change in the stockbroker's manner to a blending of two anxieties.
"He is anxious about money matters," she had said to herself, "and he is anxious about Charlotte's health. His lips, moving in whispered calculations, as he sits brooding by the fire, tell me of the first anxiety; his eyes, wandering furtively to his step-daughter's face every now and then, tell me of the second."
This furtive anxiety of Mr. Sheldon's increased Diana Paget's anxiety. This man, who had a certain amount of medical knowledge, could no doubt read the diagnostics of that strange insidious illness, which had, as yet, no name. Diana, furtively watching his furtive looks, told herself that he read of danger.
"If Charlotte wants change of air, let her go to Hastings," he said; "that is the kind of place for an invalid. I want rest myself; and there's such utter stagnation in the City nowadays that I can very well afford to give myself a holiday. We'll run down to Hastings, or the immediate neighbourhood of Hastings, for a week or two."
"O Philip, how kind and considerate you are! I am sure, as I was observing to Miss Paget only today, you—"
"Ah, by the bye, there's Miss Paget. Is it absolutely necessary that Miss
Paget should go to Hastings with us?"
"Well, dear, you see she has so kindly desired to remain with me for the quarter, so as to give me time to turn round, you know, with regard to caps and summer things, and so on—for, really, she has such taste, and does strike out such excellent ideas about turning, and dipping, and dyeing, that I don't know what will become of me when she leaves us; and it would look so pointed to—"