"Oh, yes, I understand," he said, with comically raised eyebrows. He went away to find the others, muttering as he went something which sounded to Moira's ears like "Oh, wise little woman!".
So that it happened that when Jimmy, with some bravado and some hesitation, met them all at the table, and braced himself to meet their outcries and their exclamations, he found that he had nothing to meet. True, they looked at him covertly, and Alice seemed to be a little frightened, but that was all. Yet when Moira found a chance to slip her hand into his under the table, he hurriedly disengaged his fingers, and did not look at her. For so much at least his new conquering manhood demanded.
CHAPTER VI
MRS. BAFFALL'S DREAM
Old Paul had done an unprecedented thing. Utterly regardless of the fact that his usual journey to London was but just completed and the multitudinous stores laid in, he had gone to London again; and that not because he had forgotten anything.
He had apparently made up his mind with much suddenness about it; had gone off early in the morning, before anyone was stirring. Patience had been told late the previous night that he was going, and that he should return on the same day; but all her questioning only elicited from him the vague suggestion that it was a matter of business. And as London and Old Paul had been sharply divided, so far as business and all other matters were concerned, for several years past, Patience felt vaguely disquieted.
Paul came back by the last train, and he walked queerly out of the station and through the village—walked in a purposeless fashion, as though not quite knowing which way to turn. Even when he came out on to the road that led over the hill towards his house he walked with lagging feet, as though he would delay his home-coming for as long a time as possible. And frightened Patience almost out of her wits by going in at the back of the house, and coming upon her in her own little sanctum adjoining the kitchen.
"Lord save us—what's come to the man?" exclaimed Patience, starting up from her chair, and looking at him across the light of the lamp. "I didn't hear you come in."
"Hush!" he said, in a strange voice. "I'm tired—and I didn't want to see anyone to-night, Patience—not even the children. Send them to bed; I'll see them in the morning."