Birds of Prey | Page 4

an open
window smoking his cigar, had no more knowledge of his thoughts and
fancies than they might have had if he had been a Calmuck Tartar or an
Abyssinian chief.

CHAPTER II.
PHILIP SHELDON READS THE "LANCET."
Fitzgeorge-street was chill and dreary of aspect, under a gray March

sky, when Mr. Sheldon returned to it after a week's absence from
London. He had been to Little Barlingford, and had spent his brief
holiday among old friends and acquaintance. The weather had not been
in favour of that driving hither and thither in dog-carts, or riding rakish
horses long distances to beat up old companions, which is accounted
pleasure on such occasions. The blustrous winds of an unusually bitter
March had buffeted Mr. Sheldon in the streets of his native town, and
had almost blown him off the door-steps of his kindred. So it is
scarcely strange if he returned to town looking none the better for his
excursion. He looked considerably the worse for his week's absence,
the old Yorkshire-woman said, as she waited upon him while he ate a
chop and drank two large cups of very strong tea.
Mr. Sheldon made short work of his impromptu meal. He seemed
anxious to put an end to his housekeeper's affectionate interest in
himself and his health, and to get her out of the room. She had nursed
him nearly thirty years before, and the recollection that she had been
very familiar with him when he was a handsome black-eyed baby, with
a tendency to become suddenly stiff of body and crimson of visage
without any obvious provocation, inclined her to take occasional
liberties now. She watched him furtively as he sat in a big high-backed
arm-chair staring moodily at the struggling fire, and would fain have
questioned him a little about Barlingford and Barlingford people.
But Philip Sheldon was not a man with whom even a superannuated
nurse can venture to take many liberties. He was a good master, paid
his servants their wages with unfailing punctuality, and gave very little
trouble. But he was the last person in the world upon whom a garrulous
woman could venture to inflict her rambling discourse; as Nancy
Woolper--by courtesy, Mrs. Woolper--was fain to confess to her
next-door neighbour, Mrs. Magson, when her master was the subject of
an afternoon gossip. The heads of a household may inhabit a
neighbourhood for years without becoming acquainted even with the
outward aspect of their neighbours; but in the lordly servants' halls of
the West, or the modest kitchens of Bloomsbury, there will be
interchange of civilities and friendly "droppings in" to tea or supper, let
the master of the house be never so ungregarious a creature.

"You can take the tea-things, Nancy," Mr. Sheldon said presently,
arousing himself suddenly from that sombre reverie in which he had
been absorbed for the last ten minutes; "I am going to be very busy
to-night, and I expect Mr. George in the course of the evening. Mind, I
am not at home to anybody but him."
The old woman arranged the tea-things on her tray, but still kept a
furtive watch on her master, who sat with his head a little bent, and his
bright black eyes fixed on the fire with that intensity of gaze peculiar to
eyes which see something far away from the object they seem to
contemplate. She was in the habit of watching Mr. Sheldon rather
curiously at all times, for she had never quite got over a difficulty in
realising the fact that the black-eyed baby with whom she had been so
intimate could have developed into this self-contained inflexible young
man, whose thoughts were so very far away from her. To-night she
watched him more intently than she was accustomed to do, for to-night
there was some change in his face which she was trying in a dim way to
account for.
He looked up from the fire suddenly, and found her eyes fixed upon
him. It may be that he had been disturbed by a semi-consciousness of
that curious gaze, for he looked at her angrily,--"What are you staring
at, Nancy?"
It was not the first time he had encountered her watchful eyes and
asked the same impatient question. But Mrs. Woolper possessed that
north-country quickness of intellect which is generally equal to an
emergency, and was always ready with some question or suggestion
which went to prove that she had just fixed her eyes on her master,
inspired by some anxiety about his interests.
"I was just a-thinking, sir," she said, meeting his stern glance
unflinchingly with her little sharp gray eyes, "I was just a-thinking--
you said not at home to any one, except Mr. George. If it should be a
person in a cab wanting their teeth