“You are very funny, Edmond,” she said, “I suppose it’s with being so clever and studying so much and all that. But I don’t believe you have it in you to care much for any woman.”
She gave a gentle sigh as she recalled to herself the days of poor dear Mr. Crichton’s devotion to pretty little Bessie Guildford, twenty years younger than himself. She remembered how some of her friends had laughed at her for choosing to be an “old man’s darling.” “But we were very happy,” she murmured to herself.
“Perhaps not,” said her brother, as he rose to go. “And if so, all the better, I dare say. Good night, Bessie.”
“Good night, and don’t forget your comforter. And remember you are to tell me all your adventures when you come back,” she called after him.
“We’ll see,” he put his head in again at the door to say, and then he was gone.
It was dull sitting there alone, duller somehow than if Edmond had been busy at work in his own room on the other side of the wall. Bessie soon got tired of it and went to bed early. She got up rather before her usual hour the next morning in hopes of her brother’s returning to breakfast with her. But ten, eleven o’clock passed, he did not come. Mrs. Crichton succeeded in remembering a little piece of shopping to be done—a skein of silk was wanting for her fancy work; it would give her an object for a walk. So she went out for an hour, and when she came in was met by little Sims with the information that “Master had come in as soon as she had gone out. He had asked wasn’t Mrs. Crichton in, and he had left word he wouldn’t be back till late.”
Bessie was very much disappointed. She had been so anxious to hear the history of the mysterious journey. “And now,” she thought, “when Edmond comes in, he’ll be tired and thinking about other things, and I shall not hear about his adventures at all.”
It was not very late after all when Mr. Guildford came in, but as his sister had expected would be the case, he looked tired and preoccupied. They dined together, but during dinner he said little. Afterwards, contrary to his general custom, he followed Bessie into the little drawing-room and settled himself in a comfortable easy-chair near the fire.
“I am too sleepy to work to-night,” he said. “It is no use attempting it. But it is a pity, as I did nothing last night either, and I was in the middle of something rather particular.”
“You do look very tired,” said Mrs. Crichton sympathisingly.