“Oh, he’ll stop in it. Glad, too. It won’t answer for him to be doing nothing, when they can hardly keep themselves at home with the little money screwed out from what’s put aside for the Chisholms.”
Reginald never meant to hurt her. He only spoke so in his thoughtlessness. He rattled on.
“I saw George Godolphin last week. It was on the Monday, the day that swindling board first turned me back. I flung the books anywhere, and went out miles, to walk my passion off. I got into the Park, to Rotten Row. It’s precious empty at this season, not more than a dozen horses in it; but who should be coming along but George Godolphin and Mrs. Pain with a groom behind them. She was riding that beautiful horse of hers that she used to cut a dash with here in the summer; the one that folks said George gave——” Incautious Reginald coughed down the conclusion of his sentence, whistled a bar or two of a sea-song, and then resumed:
“George was well mounted, too.”
“Did you speak to them?” asked Maria.
“Of course I did,” replied Reginald, with some surprise. “And Mrs. Pain began scolding me for not having been to see her and the Verralls. She made me promise to go the next evening. They live at a pretty place on the banks of the Thames. You take the rail at Waterloo Station.”
“Well, I did, as I had promised. But I didn’t care much about it. I had been at my books all day again, and in the evening, quite late, I started. When I got there I found it was a tea-fight.”
“A tea-fight!” echoed Maria, rather uncertain what the expression might mean.
“A regular tea-fight,” repeated Reginald. “A dozen folks, mostly ladies, dressed up to the nines: and there was I in my worn-out sailor’s jacket. Charlotte began blowing me up for not coming to dinner, and she made me go into the dining-room and had it brought up for me. Lots of good things! I haven’t tasted such a dinner since I’ve been on shore. Verrall gave me some champagne.”