"Oh, he didn't seem to mind," said Fanny; "he knew father was away, and took us just as we were. He's awfully rich, I suppose, but he was just as pleasant as if he were poor--came marketing and carried the basket; and, I declare to goodness, if I had known we had such a jolly cousin before, I'd have gone and hunted him up myself in the--'Albany,' isn't it?"
"Mr Bevan lives in the 'Albany,'" said the lawyer. "It is a bachelors' residence, and scarcely a place--scarcely a place for a--er--lady to call--no, scarcely a place for a lady to call. However, what's done is done, and we must make the best of it."
"If I had only thought," said Fanny, who had not been listening to the humming and hawing of Mr Hancock, "I'd have asked him to come with us to-day. Gracious! it's just eleven. Shall we go?"
Mr Hancock took his hat and umbrella, opened the door, and they passed out.
Mr Bridgewater's emotions, when he saw his principal following the pretty Miss Lambert, were mixed.
He saw through the whole thing at once: she had come by appointment, and they were going somewhere together.
Now, on the day when he had called to lunch with Patience Hancock, and look over the lease of the Peckham House, the Peckham House had not been once mentioned; the whole conversation, conducted chiefly by Miss Hancock, concerned the welfare of her brother. She hinted at certain news, supposed to have been received by her, that a designing woman had her eye on her treasure; she implored her listener to let her know if he saw any indication of the truth of these reports. "For you know, Bridgewater," said she, indicating that the decanter was at his side, and that he might help himself to his third glass of port, "there is no fool like an old fool," to which axiom Bridgewater giggled assent.
He promised to keep a "sharp look-out," and inform her of what he saw from time to time. And it did not require a very sharp look-out to see what he saw this morning.
As we have indicated, his emotions were mixed. Fanny's face, her "sweetly pretty face," appealed to him; that she had fascinated Mr James, he felt sure; that he ought instantly to inform Miss Hancock he felt certain; that he had a lot of important letters to write and business to transact with Mr Purvis and Mr Isaacs were facts. Between these facts and these fancies the old man sat scratching his head with the stump of his pen, staring at the letters before him, and pretending to be busy. Born in the age of valentines and sentiment, he had carried along with him through life a "feeling" for the other sex; to be frank, the feeling was compounded mainly of shyness, but not altogether. I doubt if there lives a man in whose life's history there exists not a woman in some form or other, either living and active in the present, or dead and a memory--a leaf in amber.