Part 3 (1/2)

She pressed his hand, and went quietly away; came back for a moment to pat his arm and say she trusted she had not distressed him, and beg him not to stay out too long in the night air; then went into the house, closing the door softly after her.

Left alone, Geoffrey Strong fell to his pacing again, up and down the neat gravel paths with their tall box hedges. His face was very tender; looking at it, one might know he had been a loving son to his mother.

But presently he frowned over his cigar, and then laughed, and went and shook the unoffending moth (it was a rare one, if he had been thinking of that kind of thing) off the phlox.

”All the more reason, Stupid!” he said to the moth, as it flew away. ”A man goes and gets a girl to care for him, and then he goes and plays some fool trick--like as not this chap had his sheet tied--and leaves her alone the rest of her life. Just look at this sweet old angel, will you? it's a shame. No, sir, no woman in mine, thank you!”

He paced again. The moth fluttered off in the gloom; fluttered back, hovered, then settled once more on the milk-white phlox, which glimmered like a fragrant ghost in the half-light. The perfume rose from the flowers and mingled with the delicate scent of the roses and the heavier breath of lilac and syringa.

”'Where I find her not, beauties vanish; Whither I follow her, beauties flee.

Is there no method to tell her in Spanish”--

”Oh, I must be drunk!” said Doctor Geoffrey. He tried another path. A new fragrance met him, the keen, clean, cruelly sweet smell of honeysuckle. Browning was gone with the phlox and the roses; and what was this coming unbidden into his head, crisp and clean and possessing, like the honeysuckle?

”'Where e're she be, That not impossible She Who shall command my life and me”--

”I _am_ drunk!” said Geoffrey Strong. And he threw away his cigar and went to bed.

CHAPTER IV.

MOSTLY PROFESSIONAL.

”I fear Doctor Strong will be very much put out!” said Miss Phoebe Blyth.

Miss Vesta sighed, and stirred her coffee delicately. ”It is unfortunate!” she said.

”Unfortunate! my dearest Vesta, it is calamitous. Just when he is comfortably settled in surroundings which he feels to be congenial”--Miss Phoebe bridled, and glanced round the pleasant dining-room--”to have these surroundings invaded by what he dislikes most in the world, a girl, and a sick girl at that; I tell you it would not surprise me if he should give notice at once.”

This was not quite true, for Miss Phoebe would have been greatly surprised at Doctor Strong's doing anything of the kind; but she enjoyed saying it, and felt rather better after it.

”We could not possibly refuse, though, Sister Phoebe,” said Miss Vesta, mildly. ”Little Vesta being my name-child, and Brother Nathaniel without faculty, as one may say,--and it is certainly no place for her at home.”

”My dearest Vesta, I have not been entirely deprived of my senses!”

Miss Phoebe spoke with some asperity. ”Of course we cannot refuse, and of course we must do our utmost for our brother's motherless child; but none the less, it is calamitous, I repeat; and I am positive that Doctor Strong will be greatly annoyed.”

At this moment Geoffrey came in, full of apologies for his ten minutes'

tardiness. The apologies were graciously received. The Miss Blyths would never have thought of such a thing as being late to breakfast themselves, but they were not ill-pleased to have their lodger, occasionally--not too often--sleep beyond the usual hour. It showed that he felt at home, Miss Phoebe said, and Miss Vesta, the mother-instinct brooding over the lad she loved, thought he needed all the sleep he could get, and more.

”It's really disgraceful!” said the young doctor for the third time, as he drew his chair up to the table. ”Yes, please, three lumps. There never was such coffee in the world, Miss Blyth. I believe the Sultan sends it to you from his own private coffee-garden. Creamed chicken?

won't I? and m.u.f.fins, and marmalade,--what a blessing to be naturally greedy! More pain this morning, Miss Blyth? I hope not.” His quick eye had seen the cloud on his hostess's brow, and he was all attention and sympathy over his coffee-cup.

”I thank you, Doctor Strong; I feel little pain this morning; in fact, I may almost say none. But I--we have been somewhat disturbed by the contents of a letter we have received.”

”Bad news?” cried Geoffrey. ”I'm so sorry! Is there anything I can do, Miss Blyth? You will command me, of course; send telegrams or--”

”I--thank you! You are always most kind and considerate, Doctor Strong.