“It is very unlikely; I knew some Nugents once, but they were old people without any children, at least—No, I’ve been too long in the waste places of the earth ever to have rubbed shoulders with this baby; besides,” he said, with a laugh, “if there was any recognition, it was she who recognized me.”
“You are talking greater nonsense than I was doing, Bertram,” said Ralph. “We’re both out of sorts, I should think. These damp English nights take all the starch out of one. Come, let’s get home. You shan’t bring us out again after sunset, Lucy, I promise you that.”
“Oh, sunset is not a bad time here,” cried Lucy; “it’s a beautiful time; it is only in your warm countries that it is bad. Besides, it’s long after sunset; it’s almost night and no moon for an hour yet. That’s the chief thing I like going to town for, that it is never dark like this at night. I love the lamps—don’t you, Mr. Bertram?—there is such company in them; even the cottage windows are nice, and that ‘Red Lion’—one wishes that a public-house was not such a very bad thing, for it looks so ruddy and so warm. I don’t wonder the men like it; I should myself, if—Oh, take care! there is a very wet corner there, just before you come to our gates. Why, there is some one coming out. Why—it’s Reginald, Raaf!”
They were met, in the act of opening the gate, by Mr. Wradisley’s slim, unmistakable figure. He had an equally slim umbrella, beautifully rolled up, in his hand, and walked as if the damp country road were covered with velvet.
“Oh, you are coming back,” he said; “it’s a fine night for a walk, don’t you think so?—well, not after Africa, perhaps; but we are used in England to like these soft, grey skies and the feeling of—well, of dew and coolness in the air.”
“I call it damp and mud,” said Ralph, with an explosion of a laugh which seemed somehow to be an explosion manqué, as if the damp had got into that too.
“Ah,” said his brother, reflectively. “Well it is rather a brutal way of judging, but perhaps you are right. I am going to take a giro round the common. We shall meet at dinner.” And then he took off his hat to Lucy, and with a nod to Bertram went on. There was an involuntary pause among the three to watch him walking along the damp road—in which they had themselves encountered occasional puddles—as if a carpet had been spread underneath his dainty feet.
“Is this Rege’s way?” said Ralph. “It’s an odd thing for him surely—going out to walk now. He never would wet his feet any more than a cat. What is he doing out at night in the dark, a damp night, bad for his throat. Does my mother know?”
“Oh,” said Lucy, with a curious confusion; “why shouldn’t he go now, if he likes! It isn’t cold, it’s not so very damp, and Reginald’s an Englishman, and isn’t afraid of a bit of damp or a wet road. You are so hard to please. You are finding fault with everybody, Raaf.”
“Am I?” he said. “Perhaps I am. I’ve grown a brute, being so much away.”