Bernard got up slowly.
“Thank you for listening to me, all the same, old fellow,” he said, as he held out his hand. “You’ll come down to Merle at Easter for a day or two as usual? I shall count upon you.”
“Well, yes. I daresay I shall, thank you.”
They shook hands. Michael opened the door, followed his guest a few steps down the staircase, and stood looking after him till the hall door shut again. Then he returned to his sitting-room, and there came the sound of the hansom driving away.
“I wonder how it will end,” he said to himself, and for a few moments he stood there with a curious dreamy expression, very unusual to him. Suddenly he started. The dachshund, divining something out of the common, had crept up to him silently, and was licking his hand.
“All right, Solomon,” said Michael, “all right. Many thanks for reminding me that I’m wasting time. That would never do.”
He sat down at the table, resolutely drawing his books and papers towards him, and set to work to get as much done in the evening as the long interruption had made possible.
“Easter,” he said to himself, when at last he stopped working and proceeded to “tidy up,” as the children say, methodically and carefully, all the notes, plans, and books with which the table was spread. “Easter is very late this year—as late as it can be. By that time, nearly a month hence, surely Bernard will have made up his mind, as he calls it.” A gesture of something almost like disgust escaped him. “Has he got any mind, I sometimes wonder! What can she find to attract or interest her in him, except of course his good looks?”
Easter was so late that year, and the spring came on so rapidly, that it was quite confusing and unsettling to one’s ideas.