“My good friend,” exclaimed Mr Primrose, with much cordiality, “I am most happy to see you. So you are just arrived in England. But you must have made very great haste to arrive here from the Downs in little more than four and twenty hours.”
“I have not travelled quite so rapidly as that, sir,” replied Mr Robert Darnley, “but you may suppose I lost no time: and I am happy that I am here soon enough to pay my respects to you before your return. It would also have given me pleasure could I have met Miss Primrose.”
“Would it indeed? What! after she has jilted you? You are a young man of very forgiving disposition.”
“I must first of all know for a certainty that the lady has, as you say, jilted me, before I feel resentment. The correspondence was interrupted, but that might be accidental. I must have an explanation, then it will be time enough to be angry.”
“Well said, young man; I like your notions. But from what I hear, both at Neverden and Smatterton, I fear that my young lady has been fascinated by a sounding title. I hear a great deal that I cannot well understand. If travellers see strange things abroad, they also hear strange things when they come home again.”
Mr Primrose ceased speaking. Robert Darnley looked thoughtful; and the parties looked at each other with some feeling of perplexity. The father of Penelope, as being the most impetuous, though by far the oldest of the two, after a short interval continued: “But what do you propose to do? Or what must I say or do for you? Will you set off with me to London tomorrow morning?”
Robert Darnley looked serious at that proposal, and replied: “So early as tomorrow morning, under present circumstances, I think hardly praticable. I do not know what would be the consequence to my poor mother, if, after so long an absence from home, I should omit, just at my return, to eat my Christmas dinner with her.”
“Well, I shall go to town,” said Mr Primrose, “and I will endeavour to ascertain the truth of the matter; and if there has been any accidental loss of letters, it will be a great pity to make that the cause of breaking off an old acquaintance.”
“I simply wish it, sir, to be understood by Miss Primrose, that the cessation of the correspondence has not been my act and deed. But that I wrote three letters to her from Calcutta, to none of which I have ever received any answer. If the acquaintance is to be discontinued, it shall not rest on me, as arising from any fickleness on my part.”
“Good, sir, very good. You are a comparative stranger to me, it is true; but I commend your spirit, that you are not hasty in resentment before you know for what. And this I can tell you,” continued he, in a more slow and serious tone, “such was my thorough confidence in the good sense and discernment of my poor brother Greendale, that I cannot but feel respect for any one whom he respected; and I know that he respected you most sincerely.”