"I knew he had some important work to finish."
Varick felt annoyed. Somehow Bubbles always seemed to be convicting him of insincerity.
They were now close to the embankment, of which their host had drawn an attractive picture. But Blanche looked up at it with some dismay. The scene under the wintry sky looked wild and singularly dreary. Many of the fields were under water, and stretches of the marshy land were still covered with wide streaks of snow. Across the now sullen-looking, cloudy sky there moved a long processional flight of cawing rooks.
The whole party closed up for a few moments. Then they walked up the steps which led to the high causeway along which Varick had promised his friends a dry walk. Sure enough, once they had reached the top, they found that the melting snow had already drained off the narrow brick path. Even so, it was slippery walking, and for her part Blanche Farrow felt sorry that they had left the muddy road.
The party soon separated into couples again, Miss Farrow and Dr. Panton leading, while Bubbles and Varick came last, behind all the others. "We must look just like the animals going into the ark," said the girl disagreeably.
Whatever the others might be feeling, Dr. Panton was thoroughly enjoying this muddy walk. He found it singularly pleasant to be with agreeable, well-bred people, who were all so fit that not one of them, with the exception of James Tapster, had even asked him a question bearing on health—or the lack of it. It had been pleasant, too, to meet Miss Brabazon again, for they had become friends, rather than acquaintances, over poor Mrs. Varick's deathbed.
Behind Dr. Panton and Miss Farrow—for the brick path which formed the crest of the embankment only held two walkers comfortably—were the least well-assorted couple of the party, Bill Donnington and James Tapster. They just plodded along side by side, now and again exchanging a laconic word or two. Tapster's half-formed hope had been that he would walk with Bubbles this afternoon; but, when it came to the point, he had made no real effort to secure her company.
The unfortunate man was feeling very nervous and uneasy—afraid lest he had been too precipitate in his wooing, for Bubbles frightened as well as fascinated him. Even he half realized that, as her husband, he would be tolerated rather than welcomed in a world of which he was anxious to form part, though in his heart he at once despised and feared its denizens.
At times he was even tempted to wish that she had said "No" at once—and that although he knew that he would have been very surprised and disappointed had she done so. On the whole he thought that after a period of maidenly hesitation she would say "Yes"; and, having inherited from an acquisitive father a positive, concrete kind of mind, as he trudged along he began ruminating over the question of Bubbles' marriage settlements. On one thing he was determined. Nothing should induce him so to arrange matters that in the event of his death Bubbles should be able to dower some worthless fortune-hunter with his, Tapster's, wealth! He felt certain that her father's solicitors would try and arrange that this might come to pass—"lawyers are such cunning devils"—and he grew purple with rage at the thought.
How surprised Donnington would have been could he have looked into his dull companion's mind!