How far she was from knowing what her visitor meant!
Mrs. Lenny looked up surprised. Then two big honest tears burst out of her eyes, and her whole face lighted up with a smile.
“You are a darling,” she said, seizing Lady Markham’s soft hand in both of hers, “with a heart as feeling! But I am not crying for anything in particular, my dear—only out of excitement, and the strangeness of everything. You must not be so sorry for me.”
Here Colonel Lenny interposed, and pointed out to Lady Markham the tea-table which was awaiting her.
“Give her a big cup, my dear lady; that is what makes Katey happy,” he said. “What would she be without her tea? We men take something stronger, I don’t deny it; but we’re not so dependent upon anything. I could live without my smoke, and I could live without my drink—times have been when I’ve lived without eating too; but I can’t fancy my wife without a tea-pot.”
“Not altogether without eating, I hope. Take some cake now,” said Lady Markham, smiling, “to make amends.”
“I will have the cake,—but yes, altogether without eating—for as long as it lasted—that was two days; the time is apt to feel long when you’ve nothing to eat. I’ve always thought the more of breakfast and dinner and all the little bits of ornamental eating and drinking that we make no account of, since then. Oh I’ve told all about it to the boys. I’m getting to an end of my stories,” said the colonel. “Roland begins to know them better than I; he says, ‘That’s not how you told it before.’ That boy is as sharp as a needle; he’s the one you should make a lawyer of, my dear lady. Now Harry’s a born soldier; he’s up to everything that wants doing with the hands. Put him before a lion, and he’ll face it, that little fellow; and he takes in every word you say to him. But Roland by Jove, cross-examines you as if you were in a witness-box: ‘You said so-and-so before,’ or ‘How could you do that when you had just done so-and-so?’ He’s as keen as an east wind.”
“That is a very biting metaphor,” said Lady Markham; but it did not occur to her that the colonel was talking against time to beguile her attention and keep the conversation which was going on at the other side of the room undisturbed. There it was Sir William who was serving Mrs. Lenny with the tea his wife had poured out.
“She knows nothing,” he said, in a low tone. “I did not think it was worth while telling her. For God’s sake do not let her surmise it now.”
“I wouldn’t if I could help it, Will; but the boy—there’s the boy.”