Hal knew they had much to say to each other, private matters to communicate, the past to speak about, and the future to arrange. In such communion, he felt that he would only be an intruder, and he availed himself of the situation to say—
“You would gladly be alone with your father, Miss Wilton. You have much to talk over of importance which my presence would render embarrassing to both. I feel a curiosity to watch the proceedings below. I will return for you in an hour.”
He did not wait for the answer, but quitted the room, closing the door after him.
“Oh! good and generous youth,” exclaimed old Wilton, gazing after him, “would that all the world were like him!”
Flora echoed the sentiment, but in silence. Perhaps, too, she had her thoughts concerning him; or why did her full lid droop as the sound of his descending footstep gradually lost itself in the echoes of the vaulted passages.
As Harry Vivian entered the quadrangle where were assembled the “benchers” and their friends and satellites, he gazed around upon the noisy, active throng, uncertain whither to bend his steps.
He impulsively strolled towards the farther end of the quadrangle, where racket-playing was going on vigorously. As he moved on, his eye suddenly caught sight of the dark, military looking personage who had so rudely stared at Flora Wilton, and whom he had so unceremoniously ejected from his path.
He was in close conversation with old Josh Maybee, and twice or thrice during their conversation he pointed to No. 10, and Josh Maybee pointed there, too—even up at the window of No. 5, where Flora was with her father.
Not for an instant did Hal doubt that Flora was the subject of their conversation. It was so natural for him to surmise it. The moustached man had stared at her in the most marked manner—impertinently and rudely, as Hal believed. He was struck with her beauty—that was certain; he could hardly be to blame for that—how could he help it? But there the matter ought to end. Why was he making inquiries about her, as it was very evident he was? Why should he desire to know who and what she was? Perhaps he wished to see her again, and to speak to her. Nothing more probable.
According to Hal’s calculation of consequences, he thought he had better not make the attempt.