“All right, dear old boy,” he said to himself; and then he stepped up briskly, and took his father’s arm.
“Do you call this honorable, sir?” began Mr. Mayne, in a most irascible voice.
“I call it very neat,” returned Dick, cheerfully. “My dear pater, everything is fair in love and war; and if you will nap at unseasonable times—but that comes of early rising, as I have often told you.”
“Hold your tongue, sir!” was the violent rejoinder. “It is a mean trick you have served me, and you know it. We will go back to-night; nothing will induce me to sleep in this place. You are not to be trusted. You told me a downright lie. You were humbugging me, sir, with your naps.” 236
“I will plead guilty to a fib, if you like,” was Dick’s careless answer. “What a fuss you are making, father! Did you never tell one in your life? Now, what is the use of putting yourself out?—it is not good at your age, sir. What would my mother say? It might bring on apoplexy, after that port-wine.”
“Confound your impertinence!” rejoined Mr. Mayne, angrily; but Dick patted his coat-sleeve pleasantly:
“There, that will do. I think you have relieved your feelings sufficiently. Now we will go to business. I have seen Nan, and told her all about it; and she has had it out with her mother. Mrs. Challoner will not hear of our writing to each other; and I am not to show my face at the Friary without your permission. There is no fibbing or want of honor there: Nan is not the girl to encourage a fellow to take liberties.”
“Oh, indeed!” sneered Mr. Mayne; but he listened attentively for all that. And his gloomy eyebrows relaxed in the darkness. The girl was not behaving so badly, after all.
“So we said good-bye,” continued Dick, keeping the latter part of the interview to himself; “and in October I shall go back for the term, as I promised. We can settle about the other things after Christmas.”
“Oh, yes, we can talk about that by and by,” replied his father, hastily; and then he waxed cheerful all at once, and called his son’s attention to some new houses they were building. “After all, Hadleigh is not such a bad little place,” he observed; “and they gave us a very good dinner at the hotel. It is not every one who can cook fish like that.” And then Dick knew that the storm had blown over for the present, and that his father intended to make himself pleasant and ignore all troublesome topics.