"I have brought you a bit of fowl, Clara; try and eat it."
She waved it away, briefly saying she could not touch it: she could not eat. She waved him away, telling him to go to his dinner. Mr. Lake simply put the plate down again, and stood near her.
"I must go home. I shall die if I stay here."
"Clara, I promise that you shall go. What more can I say? The house is sufficiently habitable now; there's nothing to detain us. Settle it yourself with the doctor. If he says you may travel tomorrow, so be it."
She closed her eyes--a sign that the contest was over. Mr. Lake carried the plate of fowl back to the dining-room, not feeling altogether upon the best terms with himself. For the first time he was realizing the fact that his wife's full recovery might be a more precarious affair than he had suspected.
"I knew she'd not touch it," said Mrs. Chester; "though I think she might eat it if she would."
"Surely she is not sulky!" spoke Lady Ellis, in an undertone, to Mr. Lake, turning her brilliant and fascinating eyes upon him, as he sat down in his place beside her.
He was not quite bad. He cared for his wife probably as much as he had ever done, although he had become enthralled by another, according to his light and unsteady nature. A haughty flush darkened his brow, and he pointedly turned from Lady Ellis without answering.
"It is the breast of the fowl wasted," cried thrifty Mrs. Chester, in her vexation.
It was not wasted. Mr. Lake took it upon his own plate, and made his dinner off it, never speaking a word all the while to anybody.