The Grey Lady | Page 7

remains to be seen," said Mrs. Harrington, with a gleam in her hard grey eyes, and Mrs. Ingham-Baker pricked her finger.
"I am sure," said the latter lady unctuously, when she had had time to think it out, "I am sure I should be content for her to live very quietly if I only knew that she had married a good man. I always say that riches do not make happiness."
"Yes, a number of people say that," answered Mrs. Harrington, and at the same moment Fitz burst into the room.
"Aunt Marian," he cried, "he has gone!"
"Who has gone?" asked the lady of the house coldly. "Please close the door."
"Luke! He has gone! He went straight out of the house, and the butler does not know where he went to! It is all your fault, Aunt Marian; you had no right to speak to him like that! You know you hadn't. I am going to look for him."
"Now, do not get excited," said Mrs. Harrington soothingly. "Just come here and listen to me. Luke has behaved very badly. He has been idle and stubborn on board the Britannia. He has been rude and ungrateful to me."
She found she had taken the boy's hand, and she dropped it suddenly, as if ashamed of showing so much emotion.
"I am not going to have my house upset by the tantrums of a bad- tempered boy. It is nearly dinner time. Luke is sure to come back. If he is not back by the time we have finished dinner I will send one of the men out to look for him. He is probably sulking in some corner of the gardens."
Seeing that Fitz was white with anxiety, she forgot herself so much as to draw him to her again.
"Now, Fitz," she said, "you must obey me and leave me to manage Luke in my own way. I know best. Just go and dress for dinner. Luke will come back--never fear."
But Luke did not come back.

CHAPTER III
. A SEA DOG.
There is one that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart.
The glass door of the dining-room of the Hotel of the Four Nations at Barcelona was opened softly, almost nervously, by a shock-headed little man, who peered into the room.
One of the waiters stepped forward and drew out a chair.
"Thank ye--thank ye," said the new-comer, in a thick though pleasant voice.
He looked around, rather bewildered--as if he had never seen a table d'hote before. It almost appeared as if a doubt existed in his mind whether or not he was expected to go and shake hands with some one present, explaining who he was.
As, however, no one appeared to invite this confidence he took the chair offered and sat gravely down.
The waiter laid the menu at his side, and the elderly diner, whose face and person bespoke a seafaring life, gazed politely at it. He was obviously desirous of avoiding hurting the young man's feelings, but the card puzzled as much as it distressed him.
Observing with the brightest of blue eyes the manners and customs of his neighbours, the old sailor helped himself to a little wine from the decanter set in front of him, and filled up the glass with water.
The waiter drew forward a small dish of olives and another containing slices of red sausage of the thickness, consistency, and flavour of a postage stamp. The Englishman looked dubiously at these delicacies and shook his head--still obviously desirous of giving no offence. Soup was more comprehensible, and the sailor consumed his portion with a non-committing countenance. But the fish, which happened to be of a Mediterranean savour--served in little lumps--caused considerable hesitation.
"Is it slugs?" inquired the mariner guardedly--as if open to conviction--in a voice that penetrated half the length of the table.
The waiter explained in fluent Castilian the nature of the dish.
"I want to know if it's slugs," repeated the sailor, with a stout simplicity.
One or two commercial travellers, possessing a smattering of English, smiled openly, and an English gentleman seated at the side of the inquirer leant gravely towards him.
"That is a preparation of fish," he explained. "You won't find it at all bad."
"Thank you, sir," replied the old man, helping himself with an air of relief which would have been extremely comic had it been shorn of its pathos. "I am afraid," he went on confidentially, "of gettin' slugs to eat. I'm told that they eat them in these parts."
"This," replied the other, with stupendous gravity, "is not the slug season. Besides, if you did get 'em, I dare say you would be pleasantly surprised."
"Maybe, maybe! Though I don't hold by foreign ways."
Such was the beginning of a passing friendship between two men who had nothing in common except their country; for one was a peer of the realm, travelling in Spain