‘I never thought you could be in earnest,’ Mrs. Tracy said; ‘the rooms are well enough, but after what you have been accustomed to,--I was just saying to Millicent that of course it was impossible. But now I shall be quite comfortable in my mind, knowing you are there. Living in lodgings is very trying for ladies,’ continued the widow, lowering her voice confidentially as she went in with Ben to give a critical look round the sitting-room. ‘You cannot think how anxious I have been to have some one I know here,--on Millicent’s account, Mr. Renton. The last lodger used positively to lie in wait for my innocent child at the door.’
‘Confounded impudence!’ said Ben. ‘I hope the fellow was kicked out.’
‘Ah, we had no such champions as you,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a dubious smile. ‘It was after my poor boy went away on that ill-fated voyage, so much against my will, Mr. Renton.--Yes, he has actually taken them, Millicent,’ she went on, speaking louder as she turned round. ‘We were just going out for our little walk. It is cool now, and there are not so many people about. We neither of us feel equal to fashionable promenades, Mr. Renton. We take our little walk for health’s sake in the cool of the evening. It is all the amusement my poor child has.’
‘Don’t say so, mamma dear,’ said Millicent. ‘I am quite happy. And oh, Mr. Renton, couldn’t you have dear Mary up for a day or two to see you? Cousins may visit, may not they, mamma? It would be such a pleasure to see her again.’
‘Hush, child, you don’t think what you are saying. Young ladies can’t visit young men, you silly girl,’ said Mrs. Tracy. And Millicent blushed and glided round to the other side of her mother, as they all emerged into the street. Why should that mass of crape be put between them? Ben thought. But yet he had the happiness of walking to the Park with them, and catching, across Mrs. Tracy’s shadow now and then, a glance of the blue eyes. They talked and amused him the whole way, leading him to the grateful shadows of Kensington Gardens, away from all chance of recognition by his fashionable friends, even had there been any fashionable friends to recognise him. They would not permit him, however, to return with them, but dismissed him under the trees. ‘I am sure we are keeping you from dinner,’ Mrs. Tracy said, ‘and we could only ask you to tea. But I trust you will come to us often to tea, Mr. Renton, when you are our fellow-lodger at No. 10.’