The brown eyes looked steadily into the grey ones.
'Careful of what?'
'Why—not to get mixed up in some foolish affair for which you really care nothing.'
Roger roused himself with a laugh. 'I think you have got from the Admiral that trick of turning the tables. Here I was just going to ask you the same thing.'
'I'm not likely to bestir myself about political affairs, sir.'
'I hope not. But seriously, Mawfy, I do not like the whole affair—your going, I mean. Your father cannot stay long with you, and then you will be with strangers. Will you promise to let me know if you should be in any need?'
Marion smiled indulgently, then sobered, and looked broodingly across the land again. 'Oh Roger!' she cried impulsively, not thinking at all of herself, only conscious of the little boy grown big at her side. 'I could wish it were all over, and I were back again. I'm afraid for you. Something is going to happen. For days I've had a foreboding. I always know when a storm is coming, and in the same way I know now——'
She pulled herself up. It was not her way to talk at random of her innermost feelings.
'Nonsense, nonsense!' said Roger briskly. 'Nothing ever happens unless you let it. You had a foreboding when I went to Blundell's. And what happened? Nothing! Oh yes—Elise came.'
They looked at each other in silence. Then Roger smiled. 'Come, Mawfy, 'tis my last half hour.'