Won't it be wonderful?"
Then the kettle boiled, and Henry made the tea; and when it had long
since been drunk, Esther began to think it must be five o'clock, and,
horrified to find it a quarter to six, confessed to being ashamed of
herself, and tried to console her conscience by the haste of
her good-bye.
"I'm afraid I've wasted your afternoon," she said; "but we don't often
get a chat nowadays, do we? Good-bye, dear. Go on loving me, won't you?"
After that, Henry would give the day up as a bad job, and begin to
wonder if Ned would be dropping in that evening for a smoke; and as that
was Ned's almost nightly custom about eight o'clock, the chances of
Henry's disappointment were not serious.
CHAPTER XLII
A HEAVIER FOOTFALL
One morning, as Henry was really doing a little work, a more ponderous
step broke the silence of his landing, a heavy footfall full of
friendship. Certainly that was not Angel, nor even the more weighty
Esther, though when the knock came it was little and shy as a woman's.
Henry threw open the door, but for a moment there was no one to be seen;
and then, recalling the idiosyncrasy of a certain new friend whom by
that very token he guessed it might be, he came out on to the landing,
to find a great big friendly man in corpulent blue serge, a rough, dark
beard, and a slouched hat, standing a few feet off in a deprecating
way,--which really meant that if there were any ladies in the room with
Mr.
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