But you have always been
a cherub sitting up aloft and keeping watch over--
Poor Jack.
"P.P.S.--This by Special Messenger. . . . Forgive my breaking
away and leaving you all so impolitely. Nothing would do, just
then, but to escape and be alone.--
Until Tuesday."
A boy-messenger brought this missive at 5.30. I read it over in a
hurry, and took cheer: read it over a second time, sentence by
sentence, and liked it less. It left no doubt, anyhow, that to
search for Jack on the reaches of the river would be idle, as to find
him would be mean. So there was nothing to do but wait.
That week-end, as it happened, brought a false promise of spring,
with a hard east wind and a clear sky.
Punctually at nine o'clock on Tuesday he arrived, clean and hale and
positively bronzed. The old preoccupation of over-work rested no
longer upon him. We had made ready with grilled sole, omelette,
bacon and a cold game-pie. He ate like a cavalryman, talking all the
while of his adventures.
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