Comethup had shaken hands with him somewhat diffidently. "I am very glad to see you, uncle," he said, as soon as Mr. Carlaw had finished speaking. "We're just off for a picnic; I'm staying with the captain for a week, before I go on to London. I've just left school, you know."
"A picnic! Oh, for the days of picnics, and pretty faces, and murmuring brooks, and the deuce knows what else! Gone, alas! forever. But what do I see? A vacant seat. Youth and beauty on one side, and crabbed age on the other. Gad! I'll balance you; youth and beauty run in couples, captain--crabbed age shall pair as well. I'll join you."
He had the carriage door open and a foot on the step before any one could speak. But the captain put out a hand. "My dear sir," he said, "I can assure you that we did not contemplate an addition----"
But Mr. Robert Carlaw cut him short. "Not a word, not a word," he exclaimed. "Picnics are like all other joyous things in the world--the more the merrier. And I'm not a great eater, by any means." He was into the carriage by this time, and had dropped with a sigh of contentment beside the captain, thrusting that little gentleman ruthlessly out of the way. He closed the door, and the carriage moved on again.
He had taken the matter so completely by storm, and it was so impossible to tell him that he wasn't wanted, and to stop the carriage and thrust him out again, that the three holiday-makers resigned themselves to the inevitable and sat in awkward silence, casting furtive glances at him.
Of all the people in their small world, it is possible that Mr. Robert Carlaw was quite the last they would have chosen as a companion for what had promised to be a happy day. He sat for some time in gloomy thought, waking now and then to a sudden smile, as though joyousness were expected of him, but showing plainly that the effort cost him something, and was difficult. The lightness had gone out of the others, too; they sat more stiffly than they had done, and looked anywhere but at him. At last, with a sigh, he broke the silence.
"I can not tell you," he began, "how grateful I am to Providence that I met you. For me the sun shines no more; blackness creeps about me. If I should laugh a little in the sun to-day, if I should be glad that bright faces are before me"--he bowed toward the young people--"believe that it is only a passing thing, and that despair--horrible despair--will claim me for its own within a few hours. Sir"--he turned abruptly on the captain--"I am a most unhappy man."