'Never. But she doesn't write voluminously.'
'Then of course it has. Just write to Theodosia now, will you? It was her bounden duty to have sent her off home the moment she suspected his pretensions. I'll confess it's a good name is Danby, but bless me! one sees Campbell over a shop door, and Spencer on a costermonger's cart! And an Anglo-Indian too! Don't know anything about them and care less. And then to think she might have had you, letting alone Ushire's son, who'd have made her a countess some day. Really, Anthony, it's fit to turn one's blood; it'll upset my liver, I know. He may be a scamp, a fortune-hunter, a merry-andrew, a married man,' said the Admiral, his imagination running rampant, and his voice taking a higher key as each new possibility occurred to him. He was woe-begone and desperate. 'I can't digest it, Anthony,' he said, settling in one of the windows, and looking limp and hopelessly perplexed; 'I can't digest it. It's not like Cynthy. It's a loss of dignity. And she, with all her charm and her choice, and you at her beck. It's inconceivable; I can't believe it.'
'She will be home before I can hear from Theo,' said Tremenheere. He was too conscious of his own lack of spirit to marvel at the Admiral's. 'I can't understand her not having written, though. There must have been some mistake over the mails. She ought to have written to you, or rather perhaps Kerr should. But he's such an easy-going fellow, is St. John. However, if I were you, Admiral, I would not distress myself. I don't think Cynthia's judgment will have failed her. We must hope for the best.'
'Hope for the best! That often means getting the worst. The best won't come for our sitting with folded hands, thinking about it. No, no, Anthony, and I'll have none of your confounded aphorisms—"Whatever is, is best," and all that fraternity of philosophy. They're a mental creeping paralysis, that's what they are. I mean to act, to act, Anthony!'
He stamped his foot as he spoke, and screwing his eye-glass into his eye, glared at Tremenheere as though wishing for contradiction for the sake of defying it.
'I would,' said Tremenheere, 'certainly I would, if I were you, Admiral. There will be many considerations in the case of your granddaughter. But wait until she gets home and then be calm, do be calm. Don't alarm her. I don't think it's occurred to her how you will have taken it, how you'll feel it. Letters would only complicate matters by crossing or miscarrying or not reaching. She will soon be home.'
The Admiral was walking up and down the room again. He was listening, but with no intention of heeding until the tone in which these last words were uttered struck on his ears. It was a tone utterly unlike the petulance of his own, that of a man baulked in his dearest desire who foresees nothing but pangs in a proximity where hope had long hovered, but whence it had for ever taken flight.
'Anthony,' said the Admiral, reaching him rapidly and putting his hand on his arm, 'I'm a confounded selfish old brute. Here am I screwing into your nerves to save my own. I'm going. Come down with me. The air in your garden'll do you good. But just write to Theodosia, will you?'