She looked up in his face again. It was desperately provoking.
"Or the summer after," thought Jerry, with a pang. "Does that girl sitting there, three feet away from me, and who doesn't think I care for her a bit, imagine for a moment that I am going to let her wander about all the earth with that respectable old gentleman, her father, till the crack of doom? Nonsense! She isn't a bit good-looking," he thought, looking down into her eyes, and when she lowered her eyes, gazing devoutly at her hat--"she isn't a bit good-looking--not half as good-looking as Edith, and Edith is no beauty. But still, I think, I'd feel excellently comfortable if the others would go away, and I might put my arm round her and try to persuade her that she was happy because I did so."
"You find Alfred almost quite well again?" asked Mrs. Paulton genially of Jerry.
"Oh, yes. He is almost as well as ever, and of course will be better than ever in a little while."
"A few whiffs of sea air will put me on my legs once more," said Alfred, with abounding cheerfulness. "I feel as if the very look of the sea would set me all right."
"You unfortunate devil!" thought Jerry. "Are you so bad as that? Oh, for the mind of one of those plaguey clowns! Falstaff was the only man who ever enjoyed life thoroughly--Falstaff and Raffaelle. What was the burden of flesh carried by Falstaff compared to this 'feather of lead!' What were all the jealousies which surrounded Raffaelle's career compared to my jealousy of the hat that touches her hair, or the glove that touches her cheek!"
"You will of course stay with us while you are in London," said Mrs. Paulton. "I told Alfred to be sure to say that we insisted upon your doing so, and the silly boy forgot it."
"Oh, he'll stay, mother," answered Alfred. "He'll stay with us while he's in London."
The invalid gave a glance at Jerry. The latter understood it to be an appeal for a very brief respite indeed from travelling. Jerry was in no small difficulty as to what he should say or how he should act. He would like to stop at Carlingford House a month, a year. Even a month was out of the question. But it was too bad that Alfred should be in such a violent hurry to go away. He believed Madge's brother had no suspicion that Madge was particularly dear to him. Still, common hospitality would scarcely allow a man to hurry a guest away from under his own roof after twenty-four hours' stay, particularly when that friend had come several hundred miles to do his host a good turn. No, hospitality would not allow a man to do it, but love would. He, Jerry, could not plead fatigue. That would be grotesque in a healthy young man. He would not lie and say he had business in London which would keep him a few days there, and yet it was shameful and ridiculous that after a whole month of separation he should be obliged to fly from her almost before he had time to get accustomed to the music of her voice. What delicious music it did make in his hungry ears! He would ask Alfred, without any explanation, if the day after to-morrow would not suit him quite as well as tomorrow.
He made a sign to Alfred, and the two young men passed through the folding doors into the front drawing-room. Here a bright fire burned. Alfred went to the fire--Jerry to the window. The latter looked out, started, and said slowly: