That was quite enough. "I'll go and ask him," said Roland eagerly. "Anyway he may be able to tell me how Dick received it."
Away went Roland, on the spur of the moment. It was a clear, cold evening, the air sharp and frosty; and Roland ran all the way to Mrs. Gerald Yorke's.
That lady was not in tears this evening; but her mood was a gloomy one, her face fractious. The tea was on the table, and she was cutting thick bread-and-butter for the three little girls sitting so quietly round it, before their cups of milk-and-water. Gerald had gone out again; she did not know where, whether temporarily, or to his chambers for the night, or anything about him.
"I think something must have gone wrong at Sunny Mead," observed Winny. "When I asked what brought him back so soon, he only swore. Perhaps Sir Vincent refused to lend money, and they had a quarrel. I know Gerald meant to ask him: he is in dreadful embarrassment."
"Mamma," pleaded a little voice, "there's no butter on my bread."
"There's as much as I can afford to put, Kitty," was Mrs. Yorke's answer. "I must keep some for the morning. Suppose your papa should find no butter for breakfast, if he comes home to sleep tonight! My goodness!"
"Bread and scrape's not good, is it, Kitty?" said Roland. "No," plaintively answered the child.
Roland clattered out, taking the stairs at a leap. Mrs. Yorke supposed he had left without the ceremony of saying goodnight.
"Just like his manners!" she fractiously cried. "But oh! don't I wish Gerald was like him in temper!"
Roland had not gone for the night. He happened to have a shilling in his pocket, and went to buy a sixpenny pot of marmalade. As he was skimming back with it, his eye fell on some small shrimps, exposed for sale on a fishmonger's board. The temptation (with the loose sixpence in his hand) was not to be resisted.