It was Dick, and he approached them, yelling: "Nell! Nell! Where on earth are you, Nell?"
They had barely time to move before he was upon them.
"I say, Nell, where on earth have you been? I'm starving----Hallo!" he
broke off, staring first at Nell's red and downcast face, and then at
Drake's smiling and quite obviously joyous one. "What----"
Drake took Nell's hand.
"We quite forgot you, Dick, and everybody and everything else. But
you'll forgive us when you hear that Nell and I have--have----"
"Made it up again!" finished Dick, with a grin that ran from ear to ear.
"By George, you don't say so! Well, I said it was only a tiff; now,
didn't I, Nell? But it was a pretty long one. Eighteen months or
thereabouts, isn't it?"
For a moment the two lovers looked sad, then Drake smiled.
"Just eighteen months too long, Dick," he said. "But you might wish us
joy."
"I do, I do--or I would, if I wasn't starving!" retorted Dick. "While
you have been spooning under the spreading chestnut tree, I've been
wrestling with the electric dynamos; and the sight of even bread and
cheese would melt me to tears. But I am glad, old man," he said, in a
grave tone--"glad for both your sakes; for any one could see with
three-quarters of an eye, to be exact, that you were both miserable
without each other. Oh, save me from the madness of love!"
"There was a very pretty girl by the name of Angel at the Maltbys'
dance," put in Drake musingly; "a very pretty girl, indeed, who sat out
most of the dances, if I remember rightly, with a young friend of mine."
Dick's face grew a healthy, brick-dust red, and he glanced shyly from
one to the other.
"Well hit, Drake, old man!" he said. "Yes; there was one, and I've seen
her in London once or twice----"
"Oh, Dick, and you never told me!" said Nell reproachfully.
"I don't tell you everything, little girl," he remarked severely; "and I
won't tell you any more now unless you come on and give me something to
eat. See here, now; I'll walk in front, and promise not to look
round----"
Nell, blushing painfully, looked at Drake appealingly, and he seized
Dick by the arm and marched him off in the direction of the lodge, Nell
following more slowly.
As they entered, the nurse came down from Falconer's room, and Nell
inquired after him anxiously.