MR. MAYNE ORDERS A BASIN OF GRUEL.
On the following morning Mr. Mayne did open his lips to address a word to his son:
“I shall be obliged to you, Dick, if you will postpone your intended visit to town, for this day at least;” for Dick had an “ABC” beside him, and was picking out a fast train while he ate his breakfast.
“All right,” replied Dick: “I can wait another four-and-twenty hours.” But though he yielded the point graciously enough, he did not look at his father, or say anything more on the subject; and as soon as his appetite was satisfied, he took up the “Times,” and lounged into his den. Shortly afterwards they heard him whistling to his dogs, and knew that he would not appear until luncheon.
Mrs. Mayne wished that her husband would follow his example; but he had put on his slippers, and showed no inclination to leave the fireside. He read his paper and dozed a good deal, and snapped up Bessie if she spoke to him: so, on the whole, Mrs. Mayne had rather a dull morning. When the luncheon-bell rang, he chose to put on invalid airs, and ordered a basin of gruel to be brought to him in the library. Mrs. Mayne who knew he was not ill, and that his indisposition was purely mental and imaginary, was yet wise enough to fall in with his whim.
“Your master would like his gruel nicely flavored, James,” she said to the footman. “Please ask Mrs. Simpkins to prepare it in the way he likes.” And then she placed his favorite little table beside him, and stirred the fire into a more cheerful blaze.
“Your father does not feel himself well enough to come in to luncheon, Dick,” she said to her son, probably for the benefit of the servant, who was waiting to remove the covers; and Dick, for the same reason, testified a proper amount of sympathy.
“He takes too long walks for a man of his age,” he said, applying himself vigorously to the dismemberment of a chicken. “Mother, I will trouble you for some of that game-pie.” And then he told her another anecdote about Vigo.
After luncheon Dick again disappeared, and Mrs. Mayne, who dreaded an afternoon’s tete-a-tete with her husband in his 322 present mood, went up to her own room, for some feminine business, or to take a nap. Mr. Mayne, a little mollified by the gruel, which had been flavored exactly to his liking with a soupcon of rum, was just composing himself for another doze, when he was roused by the loud pealing of the hall bell, and the next moment the door was flung open by James, and Sir Henry Challoner was announced.
It was a dark wintry afternoon, and the library was somewhat sombre: the fire had died down, owing to Mr. Mayne’s drowsiness. In the dim light Sir Harry’s big burly figure looked almost gigantic. Mr. Mayne, with his little lean shoulders and sharp face, looked beside him much as a small gray-hound would beside a mastiff.