“She must keep the lodge. She can’t see so much of her family as she used. I can’t, you know, sir, go on with that lot. Consider my rank in life,” said Huxter, putting a very dirty hand up to his chin.
“Au fait,” said Mr. Pen, who was infinitely amused, and concerning whom mutato nomine (and of course concerning nobody else in the world) the fable might have been narrated.
As the two gentlemen were in the midst of this colloquy, another knock came to Pen’s door, and his servant presently announced Mr. Bows. The old man followed slowly, his pale face blushing, and his hand trembling somewhat as he took Pen’s. He coughed, and wiped his face in his checked cotton pocket-handkerchief, and sate down with his hands on his knees, the sunshining on his bald head. Pen looked at the homely figure with no small sympathy and kindness. This man, too, has had his griefs and his wounds, Arthur thought. This man, too, has brought his genius and his heart, and laid them at a woman’s feet; where she spurned them. The chance of life has gone against him, and the prize is with that creature yonder. Fanny’s bridegroom, thus mutely apostrophised, had winked meanwhile with one eye at old Bows, and was driving holes in the floor with the cane which he loved.
“So we have lost, Mr. Bows, and here is the lucky winner,” Pen said, looking hard at the old man.
“Here is the lucky winner, sir, as you say.”
“I suppose you have come from my place?” asked Huxter, who, having winked at Bows with one eye, now favoured Pen with a wink of the other—a wink which seemed to say, “Infatuated old boy—you understand—over head and ears in love with her poor old fool.”
“Yes, I have been there ever since you went away. It was Mrs. Sam who sent me after you: who said that she thought you might be doing something stupid—something like yourself, Huxter.”
“There’s as big fools as I am,” growled the young surgeon.
“A few, p’raps,” said the old man; “not many, let us trust. Yes, she sent me after you for fear you should offend Mr. Pendennis; and I daresay because she thought you wouldn’t give her message to him, and beg him to go and see her; and she knew I would take her errand. Did he tell you that, sir?”
Huxter blushed scarlet, and covered his confusion with an imprecation. Pen laughed; the scene suited his bitter humour more and more.