'I'll ask someone to dine with me to-morrow night,' he said to himself. Then he turned to Mary as she removed his plate, and said, 'How is baby this afternoon? Does he fret much at his mother's being away?'
'I beg your pardon, sir; I don't know. I'll run and ask nurse.'
Of course she knew, but she made this an excuse for getting out of the dining-room into the freer air of the nursery.
Never, in all his life, had Philip found himself more impatient of the silence imposed on him, more desirous to hear his own voice. In his lodgings he had eaten his meals alone—a chop and some potatoes—and he had had a book or a paper at his side whilst eating; the landlady or the slavey had not stood in the room watching him, observing the parting in his hair behind his head, making fun of his mole, impatient to dust his collar. In his lodgings he had drunk beer or London cooper—now he drank claret, sherry, port; but he would have drunk even water, if he might have been alone.
'No, thank you; no dessert!' He jumped up—he was eager to leave the room.
'Please, sir, any cheese?'
'No, thank you, no cheese.'
He ran away from his half-finished dinner to his own study, where he could be alone, away from the insufferable Mary. Then he rang the bell.
'You may bring me up the claret and port here—and the preserved ginger,' he ordered. Then thought he had acted absurdly, and would have countermanded the order had he not been ashamed to confess how unhinged he was.
He sat in his own room, with his claret glass in his hand, dreaming, looking into the fire.