When, a few minutes afterwards, we left the house, Arthur’s first remark was certainly a strange one. “We’ve been there just _twenty minutes_,” he said, “and I’ve done nothing but listen to you and Lady Muriel talking: and yet, somehow, I feel exactly as if _I_ had been talking with her for an _hour_ at least!”
And so he _had_ been, I felt no doubt: only, as the time had been put back to the beginning of the tête-à-tête he referred to, the whole of it had passed into oblivion, if not into nothingness! But I valued my own reputation for sanity too highly to venture on explaining to _him_ what had happened.
For some cause, which I could not at the moment divine, Arthur was unusually grave and silent during our walk home. It could not be connected with Eric Lindon, I thought, as he had for some days been away in London: so that, having Lady Muriel almost ‘all to himself’—for _I_ was only too glad to hear those two conversing, to have any wish to intrude any remarks of my own—he _ought_, theoretically, to have been specially radiant and contented with life. “Can he have heard any bad news?” I said to myself. And, almost as if he had read my thoughts, he spoke.
“He will be here by the last train,” he said, in the tone of one who is continuing a conversation rather than beginning one.
“Yes—Captain Lindon,” said Arthur: “I said ‘he,’ because I fancied we were talking about him. The Earl told me he comes to-night, though _to-morrow_ is the day when he will know about the Commission that he’s hoping for. I wonder he doesn’t stay another day to hear the result, if he’s really so anxious about it as the Earl believes he is.”
“He can have a telegram sent after him,” I said: “but it’s not very soldier-like, running away from possible bad news!”
“He’s a very good fellow,” said Arthur: “but I confess it would be good news for _me_, if he got his Commission, and his Marching Orders, all at once! I wish him all happiness—with _one_ exception. Good night!” (We had reached home by this time.) “I’m not good company to-night—better be alone.”
It was much the same, next day. Arthur declared he wasn’t fit for Society, and I had to set forth alone for an afternoon-stroll. I took the road to the Station, and, at the point where the road from the ‘Hall’ joined it, I paused, seeing my friends in the distance, seemingly bound for the same goal.