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Besides, Pendennis did not quite know what he felt yet; it was something overwhelming, maddening, delicious; a fever of wild joy and undefined longing. And now Rowkins and Miss Thackthwaite came on to dance the favourite double hornpipe, and Foker abandoned himself to the delights of this ballet, just as he had to the tears of the tragedy, a few minutes before.
"And I say, Pen," he said in a confidential whisper, calling his nephew back, "mind you make a point of calling in Grosvenor Place to-morrow. They've been uncommonly civil; mons'ously civil and kind." Pen promised and wondered, and the Major's door having been closed upon him by Morgan, Foker took Pen's arm, and walked with him for some time silently puffing his cigar.
Mr. Henry Foker went away, then, carrying with him that grief and care which passes free at the strictest custom-houses, and which proverbially accompanies the exile, and with this crape over his eyes, even the Parisian Boulevard looked melancholy to him, and the sky of Italy black. To Sir Francis Clavering, that year was a most unfortunate one.
Harry Foker attained a proper age, Lady Ann should become his wife. The idea had been familiar to her mind when she yet wore pinafores, and when Harry, the dirtiest of little boys, used to come back with black eyes from school to Drummington, or to his father's house of Logwood, where Lady Ann lived much with her aunt.
"Walter Lorraine died of the measles, poor little beggar, when we were at Grey Friars. I remember his mother coming up." "You are not a literary man, Foker," Pen said, laughing, and hooking his arm into his friend's. "You must know I have been writing a novel, and some of the papers have spoken very well of it. Perhaps you don't read the Sunday Papers?"
Foker's door by this time, and, opening it, Harry walked with his friend into his apartments, which were situated in the back part of the house, and behind the family dining-room, where the elder Foker received his guests, surrounded by pictures of himself, his wife, his infant son on a donkey, and the late Earl of Gravesend in his robes as a peer.
"Foolish boy!" she said, "it shall be loved as it deserves: who could help loving such a silly creature?" And at this moment Frank Clavering broke in upon the sentimental trio. "I say, Pendennis!" he said. "Well, Frank!" "The man wants to be paid, and go back. He's had some beer." "I'll go back with him," cried Pen. "Good-by, Blanche. God bless you, Foker, old friend.
Foker drove his lovely guests home to Brompton in the drag that night; but he was quite thoughtful and gloomy during the whole of the little journey from Richmond; neither listening to the jokes of the friends behind him and on the box by his side nor enlivening them as was his wont, by his own facetious sallies.
"Blanche is always the last," said the boy, eating muffins; "she's a regular dawdle, she is. When you're not here, she lays in bed till lunch time." "Be quiet, Frank," said the mother. Blanche came down presently, looking pale, and with rather an eager look toward Foker; then she advanced and kissed her mother, and had a face beaming with her very best smiles on when she greeted Harry.
Foker felt poor Pen trembling on his arm. His uncle wanted him to travel, and his mother urged him, too, for he was in a state of restless unhappiness. But he said point blank he would not go, and his mother was too fond, and his uncle too wise, to force him.
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