“What time shall you be back, Julian?”
And as he answered carelessly:
“I can’t tell; not till dinner-time, I expect,” there came into her eyes a curious shadow of yearning anxiety.
“Take care of yourself, sir!” she said lightly, and went back into the house.
That shadow lived in her eyes all day as she went about giving orders and “putting things to rights,” as she said; striving in fact, with a concealed earnestness which seemed somewhat disproportionate to its object, to give the house that peculiar air of brightness which had been so characteristic of it, and which somehow did not seem so easily to be obtained as formerly.
Her face was gaiety itself, however, when she stood in the drawing-room as the dinner-bell rang, very daintily dressed in a tea-gown which Julian had admired, waiting for her son. A moment elapsed and Julian dashed downstairs, breathless and apologetic, but rather sparing of his words. His first day’s work hardly seemed to have dissipated the cloud which had hung about him that morning at breakfast, and as his mother slipped her hand playfully into his arm with a laughing word or two of forgiveness, he turned and led her out of the room without the response which would have been natural to him.
“Have you had a pleasant day?” said Mrs. Romayne lightly, as they sat down to dinner.
“Pretty well,” returned Julian indifferently. He said no more, and Mrs. Romayne, with one of her quick, half-furtive glances at him, began to talk of her own day. She had paid some calls in the afternoon, and had a great deal of news for him as to who had and who had not returned to town; and a great deal of gossip which was both amusing in itself, and rendered more amusing by the piquant animation with which she retailed it. It failed to rouse much interest in Julian, apparently, however, and after a time his mother returned to her original topic—again with a quick, anxious glance at his face.
“Did you find Mr. Allardyce easy to work with?” she enquired, interestedly this time.
“Yes: I suppose so,” was the unresponsive response.