The wind had got up and blew freshly in his face. There would be a gale
before morning. It suited his mood. He struck across the park, but
instead of making for the haw-haw, he turned into Cheiron's little gate.
He wanted understanding company, he wanted to talk cynical philosophy,
and he wanted the stimulus of his old master's biting wit.
But when he got there, he found Cheiron very taciturn--contributing
little more than a growl now and then, while he smoked his long pipe and
played with his beard. So at last he got up to go.
"I have made up my mind to marry Mrs. Cricklander, Master," he said.
"I supposed so," the Professor replied dryly. "A man always has to
convince himself he is doing a fine thing when he gives himself up to be
hanged."
CHAPTER XVII
John Derringham reached Wendover--by the road and the lodge gates--in an
impossible temper. He had left the orchard house coming as near to a
quarrel with his old master as such a thing could be. He absolutely
refused to let himself dwell upon the anger he had felt; and if Fate had
given him a distinct and pointed chance to ask the fair Cecilia for her
lily hand, when he knocked at her sitting-room door before dinner, he
would no doubt have left the next day--summoned again to London by his
Chief--an engaged man.
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