While he stood thus explaining, with an anxious face, and his Nancy pouted and tossed her pretty head, the stranger suddenly appeared at the open door.
“This way, this way!” Sarah Jane had cried, delighted by the advent of another gentleman, and already wondering why Nancy should have all the luck, and whether one wedding might not bring another.
The new-comer was tall; he was short-sighted, with a pucker on his forehead, and a glass in his eye. He stood in the door, and hazily regarded the scene, not penetrating it, nor finding out his friend for the moment; but gazing somewhat vaguely, dazzled besides by the sudden light, into the small crowded space and the group of strange faces.
“Ah, there you are, Curtis,” he said at last, with a gleam of recognition; then turned to Mrs. Bates with an apology. “I hope you will forgive such an intrusion. I had a commission to Curtis, and I did not understand—I did not know—”
“Come in, Sir, come in,” said Mrs. Bates; “don’t think of apologies—we’re very glad to see you. Sit you down, Sir, and if you’ve just come off a journey, say what you would like, and it shall be got for you—a drop of beer, or a cup of tea, or a glass with my good gentleman. You see he’s making himself comfortable. And supper’s coming in about an hour. You can hurry it up a bit, Sarah Jane,” cried the hospitable mother, “if the gentleman has just come by the train.”
“Thank you,” said the stranger, sitting down on the chair that had been cleared for him; “nothing to eat or to drink, thanks—you are too kind; but I may wait till Curtis is ready. I have got something for you, Arthur,” he said, turning again to his friend.
“Oh, have you?” said Curtis, dropping back upon the sofa, beside his Nancy, as there was nothing else to be done; but he did not take her hand again, or resume his former position. He sat very stiff and bolt upright, withdrawn from her a little; but young men and young women do not sit together behind backs for nothing, notwithstanding the gaslight; and his air of withdrawal took an aspect ridiculously prudish, and called attention. The family Bates looked curiously at the stranger, and he looked curiously at them. Neither was much acquainted with the genre of the other, and on both sides there was a half-hostile interest which quickened curiosity. But Matilda and Sarah Jane were not hostile. Their curiosity was warm with benevolence. If Nancy had done so well for herself, why not they too? He had dropped into their hands like a new prey. Their eyes brightened, the energy of enterprise came into their faces. A gentleman is a fine thing to girls of their condition, far finer in promise than in reality. The appearance of a second quarry of this kind turned their heads. Why should it not fall to one of them?
“You must have found it cold travelling, Sir,” said Matilda, wrapping up her bonnet in the paper. “October nights get chilly, don’t they? and Underhayes is a miserable little place if you have come from town.”
“I have come from the country,” said the stranger, with his short-sighted stare. He was slightly annoyed, to tell the truth, to hear it so clearly set down that he must have come from town. Did he look like a man to come from town in October?—not thinking that town meant everything that was splendid in Matilda’s eyes.
“Chilly!” cried Sarah Jane, eager to recommend herself. “I’m sure the gentleman thinks this room a deal too hot. Shouldn’t you say so, Sir? I can’t abide it; it gives me such a headache.”