Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/138

128 cicerone rushing back to them, with his drab overcoat flying in the wind; but this expectation usually died away. He missed Gaston because Gaston this winter had so often ordered his dinner for him, and his society was not sought by the count and the marquis, whose mastery of English was small and their other distractions great. Mr. Probert, it was true, had shown something of a fraternising spirit; he had come twice to the hotel, since his son's departure, and he had said, smiling and reproachful, "You neglect us, you neglect us!" Mr. Dosson had not understood what he meant by this till Delia explained after the visitor withdrew, and even then the remedy for the neglect, administered two or three days later, had not borne any particular fruit. Mr. Dosson called alone, instructed by his daughter, in the Cours la Reine, but Mr. Probert was not at home. He only left a card, on which Delia had superscribed in advance the words "So sorry!" Her father had told her he would give the card if she wanted, but he would have nothing to do with the writing. There was a discussion as to whether Mr. Probert's remark was an allusion to a deficiency of politeness on the article of his sons-in-law. Ought not Mr. Dosson perhaps to call personally, and not simply through the medium of the visits paid by his daughters to their wives, on Messieurs de Brécourt and de Cliché? Once, when this subject came up in George Flack's presence, the old