"I see," I said. "I--I'm sorry, old man!"
"I'm going to India, if I can get away," he continued, after a pause.
"Good scheme!" I replied. "We shall think of you most kindly--er, _all_
of us."
He said nothing, but shook hands in a grateful sort of fashion, and
turned away.
I suppose there is a reason for everything in this world. Still, the
spectacle of a good man fighting dumbly with a cruel disappointment--and
disappointment is perhaps the bitterest pill in all the pharmacopeia of
life--is certainly a severe test of one's convictions on the subject.
At this moment the rest of the party--_minus_ Dolly--flowed out on to
the doorstep to say farewell; and two minutes later Captain Dermott
drove heavily away--back to his day's work.
Well, thank God there is always that!
* * * * *
"I thought she was going to take him," said Kitty in her subsequent
summing-up. "It was far and away the best offer she has ever had. And he
is such a dear, too! What does the child want, I wonder! A coronet?"
"'A dinner of herbs,' perhaps," said I.
Kitty eyed me thoughtfully, and gave a wise little nod.
"Yes--Dolly is just that sort," she agreed. "But what makes you think
that?"
"Oh--nothing," I said.
There are certain matters upon which it is almost an impertinence for a
man to offer an opinion to a woman, and I rather shrank from rushing in
where my wife had evidently not thought it worth while to tread. Still,
I could not help wondering in my heart whether the arrival of one
gentleman on Sunday may not sometimes have something to do, however
indirectly, with the abrupt departure of another gentleman on Monday.