a few minutes after the uproar had subsided nothing was said among the three. At last Nick began:
"It's quite true, he has just arrived; he's in Great Stanhope Street. They've given him several weeks, to make up for the uncomfortable way they bundled him off (to arrive in time for some special business that had suddenly to be gone into) when he first went out: he tells me they promised that at the time. He got into Southampton only a few hours ago, rushed up by the first train he could catch and came off here without any dinner."
"Fancy!" said Miss Tressilian; while Biddy asked if Peter might be in good health and had been happy. Nick replied that he said it was a beastly place, but he appeared all right. He was to be in England probably a month, he was awfully brown, he sent his love to Biddy. Miss Tressilian looked at his empty stall and was of the opinion that it would be more to the point for him to come in to see her.
"Oh, he'll turn up; we had a goodish talk in the lobby, where he met me. I think he went out somewhere."
"How odd to come so many thousand miles for this, and then not to stay!" Biddy reflected.
"Did he come on purpose for this?" Miss Tressilian asked.
"Perhaps he's gone out to get his dinner!" joked Biddy.
Her friend suggested that he might be behind the scenes, but Nick expressed a doubt of this; and Biddy asked her brother if he himself were not going round. At this moment the curtain rose: Nick said he would go in the next interval. As soon as it came he quitted the box, remaining absent while it lasted.
