Mr Armstrong bowed again; and finding that the captain had returned to his chair, he quietly left the room.
When he entered Roger’s room, humming a tune to himself, he neither looked like a man who had returned from a funeral or from an altercation in the drawing-room. In five minutes he was in possession of most of what had taken place during his absence—of Roger’s cold, of the painting-lessons, of Tom’s reminiscences of Christy’s Minstrels, and most of all of Hodder’s tribulation.
“And what sort of an artist are you turning out?” inquired he.
“Oh, all right. But I say, Armstrong, I want you to make it right about Hodder before anything. Will you come and see him?”
“My dear fellow, Hodder is as safe in his cottage as you are here. Leave that to your responsible guardian. My present intention is to work on the tender mercies of Raffles for some dinner. I have travelled right through from Paris since this morning.”
“Your friend died?” inquired Roger.
“Yes. I was in time to be of some little help, I think, but he was past recovery. How is Miss Oliphant?”
“All right; but in an awful state about old Hodder. I’m afraid to meet her myself. She will be relieved to have you back.”
“Will she really?” said the tutor, laughing. “I hardly flatter myself her comfort depends on which particular hemisphere I happen to be in.”
Miss Oliphant, as it happened, had taken to a spell of hard work in her studio, and was not visible all the evening. She was, in fact, making a copy of the portrait Roger had lent her, and the work interested her greatly.