He was a handsome boy, with his father's brown eyes and dark waving hair, and with some latent expression which was not his father's and which pervaded his whole face, so that although each feature of the child resembled the same feature in George Talboys, the boy was not actually like him.
Mr. Maldon was delighted to see Robert Audley; he remembered having had the pleasure of meeting him at Ventnor, on the melancholy occasion of—He wiped his watery old eyes by way of conclusion to the sentence. Would Mr. Audley walk in? Robert strode into the parlor. The furniture was shabby and dingy, and the place reeked with the smell of stale tobacco and brandy-and-water. The boy's broken playthings, and the old man's broken clay pipes and torn, brandy-and-water-stained newspapers were scattered upon the dirty carpet. Little Georgey crept toward the visitor, watching him furtively out of his big, brown eyes. Robert took the boy on his knee, and gave him his watch-chain to play with while he talked to the old man.
"I need scarcely ask the question that I come to ask," he said; "I was in hopes I should have found your son-in-law here."
"What! you knew that he was coming to Southampton?"
"Knew that he was coming?" cried Robert, brightening up. "He is here, then?"
"No, he is not here now; but he has been here."
"When?"
"Late last night; he came by the mail."
"And left again immediately?"
"He stayed little better than an hour."