"Come along, instantly.... Damn! I've got to go to a tobacconist's; it's only just here. There isn't a cigarette in the house. Come with me?"
"I'll wait here," said Frank.
"Will you? I shan't be a second."
It was, as a matter of fact, scarcely one minute before Jack was back; he had darted in, snatched a box from the shelf and vanished, crying out to "put it down to him." He found Frank had faced round again and was staring at the water and sky and high moors. He snatched up his friend's bundle and stick.
"Come along," he said, "we shall have an hour or two before dinner."
Frank, in silence, took the bundle and stick from him again, firmly and irresistibly, and they did not speak again till they were out of ear-shot of the lodge. Then Jack began, taking Frank's arm—a custom for which he had often been rebuked.
"My dear old man!" he said. "I ... I can't say what I feel. I know the whole thing, of course, and I've expressed my mind plainly to Miss Jenny."
"Yes?"
"And to your father. Neither have answered, and naturally I haven't been over again.... Dick's been there, by the way."
Frank made no comment.