"Thank you, my lord," said Sparling, "I've been very well; but I was
much upset to hear of your lordship's accident, and very sorry you
wouldn't let me come to you."
The man spoke with genuine sympathy and regret, for he was attached to
Drake, and was fully convinced that he had the best, the handsomest, and
the most desirable master in all England.
"Thanks; very much," said Drake; "but it was nothing to speak of, and
there was no reason for dragging you down there. There wasn't any
accommodation, to tell the truth, and you'd have moped yourself to
death."
"You're looking very well, my lord--a little thinner, perhaps," said
Sparling respectfully.
Drake sighed at the naïve retort, then sighed unaccountably.
"Oh, I've done some fishing, boating, and riding," he said, "and I'm
pretty fit--fitter than I've been for some time. There's an awful pile
of letters, I see."
"Yes, my lord; you told me not to send them on. Will your lordship dine
at home to-night?"
Drake replied in the affirmative, had a bath, and changed, and sat down
to one of the daintily prepared dinners which were the envy and despair
of his bachelor friends. It was really an admirable little dinner; the
claret was a famous one from the Anglemere cellars, and warmed to a
nicety; the coffee was perfection; Sparling's ministrations left nothing
to be desired; and yet Drake sank into his easy-chair after the meal
with a sigh that was weary and wistful.
There had never been anything more than soup and a plain joint, with a
pudding to follow, at the dinners at The Cottage; but the simple meal
had been rendered a pleasant one by Dick's cheerful and boyish nonsense;
and whenever Drake looked across the table, there had been Nell's sweet
face opposite him, sometimes grave with a pensive thoughtfulness, at
others all alight with merriment and innocent, girlish gayety.
His room to-night seemed very dull and lonely. It was strange; he had
never been bored by his own society before; he had rather liked to dine
alone, to smoke his cigarette with the evening paper across his knee or
a book on the table beside him. He tried to read; but the carefully
edited paper, with its brilliant articles, its catchy little paragraphs,
and its sparkling gossip, didn't interest him in the least. He dropped
it, and fell to wondering, to picturing, what they were doing at that
precise moment at The Cottage. Mrs. Lorton, no doubt, was sitting in her
high-backed chair reading the _Fashion Gazette_; Dick was lounging just
outside the window, smoking a cigarette, mending his rod, and whistling
the last comic song. And Nell--what was Nell doing? Perhaps she was
playing softly one of the pieces he had grown fond of; or leaning half
out of the window squabbling affectionately with the boy.