“Your father drove over to speak to me upon a matter of business,” he said to Juanita. “He was tired after his journey, and preferred going home to dine.”
“He was not ill, I hope?” cried Lady Cheriton, with a look of alarm.
“No, there is nothing amiss with him, except fatigue.”
Juanita looked at him intently, eager to question him, but the butler’s entrance to announce dinner stopped her, and she told Theodore to give his arm to her mother, and followed them both to the dining-room.
The meal was a mockery as far as two out of the three were concerned. Juanita was nervous and ill at ease, impatient of the lengthy ceremonial. Theodore ate hardly anything, but kept up a slipshod conversation with Lady Cheriton, talked about the grandchild’s abnormal intelligence, and assured her in reply to her reiterated inquiries that her husband was not ill, was not even looking ill, and that there was no reason for her to go back to the Chase that night, as she was disposed to do.
Juanita rose abruptly before the grapes and peaches had been taken round.
“Would you mind coming to my room at once, Theodore?” she said. “I want half an hour’s talk with you about—business. You will excuse my leaving you, won’t you, mother?”
“My dear child, I shall be glad to get half an hour in the nursery. Boyle tells me that little rascal is never so lively as just before he settles down for the night.”
Lady Cheriton went off in one direction, Juanita and Theodore in the other.
The lamp was lighted in the study, on the table where two rows of books told of the widow’s studious solitude.