It could not be said, perhaps, that she was anxious, but she was uneasy, not knowing what to think. Mr. Wedderburn, for his part, started, as if the fault had somehow been his. “Bless me!” he said, “I had forgotten all about it. I might have gone down and met the train.”
“That would have done little good,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “for if he had come by it he would have been here before now: the thing that astonishes me is there’s no telegram. Sometimes Robert, like other people, is detained. Every business man must be detained now and then: but he always sends a telegram. I never knew him to fail.”
“That is the worst,” said Mr. Wedderburn, “of being too exact in your ways. If you ever depart from them by any accident everybody thinks something must have happened.”
“I don’t think something must have happened,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “but I don’t understand it. It’s so unlike him. He would rather take any trouble than keep me anxious; and I told him particularly we should be alone to-night, with no man except servants in the house. It’s not like Robert. It must have been something quite unforeseen.”
“Such things are always happening, my dear lady. He may have had to meet some man from London; he may even have had to go to London himself.”
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Dalyell, “you don’t think that’s likely? Without so much as a clean shirt! Besides, he would have sent a telegram,” she repeated, going back to the one thing of which she was sure.
“It’s the telegram you miss more than the man,” said Mr. Wedderburn with a laugh. It was very very little of a laugh. He was more miserable than she, for her anxiety was quite unmixed by any deeper sense of a possible reason for her husband’s absence. There was no reason for it, none whatever to her consciousness.
“That is just it. I want the telegram to explain the man. Of course, he might be called away. Would I have him tied to my apron-string? But a word of warning, that’s what I look for. ‘Kept by business and will not be back till the late train,’ or ‘Dining at the Lord President’s,’ or--it does not matter what it is. I am always glad that Robert should enjoy himself, so long as I have my telegram. But as it’s evident he’s not coming,” said Mrs. Dalyell, looking at her watch, “we must just take our dinner and hope he’s getting as good a one. He will be coming by the nine train.”