“Perhaps Mr. Shiner does,” said Dick, in the tone of a slightly injured man.
“Yes, I forgot—he does, I know.” Dick precipitately regretted that he had suggested Shiner, since it had produced such a miserable result as this.
“I’ll warrant you’ll care for somebody very much indeed another day, won’t you, Mr. Dewy?” she continued, looking very feelingly into the mathematical centre of his eyes.
“Ah, I’ll warrant I shall,” said Dick, feelingly too, and looking back into her dark pupils, whereupon they were turned aside.
“I meant,” she went on, preventing him from speaking just as he was going to narrate a forcible story about his feelings; “I meant that nobody comes to see if I have returned—not even the vicar.”
“If you want to see him, I’ll call at the vicarage directly we have had some tea.”
“No, no! Don’t let him come down here, whatever you do, whilst I am in such a state of disarrangement. Parsons look so miserable and awkward when one’s house is in a muddle; walking about, and making impossible suggestions in quaint academic phrases till your flesh creeps and you wish them dead. Do you take sugar?”
Mr. Maybold was at this instant seen coming up the path.
“There! That’s he coming! How I wish you were not here!—that is, how awkward—dear, dear!” she exclaimed, with a quick ascent of blood to her face, and irritated with Dick rather than the vicar, as it seemed.
“Pray don’t be alarmed on my account, Miss Day—good-afternoon!” said Dick in a huff, putting on his hat, and leaving the room hastily by the back-door.