Part 9 (1/2)

”Mr. Scott, will you take my daughter to the table?” said the banker, as he gave his own arm to Lady Belgrade.

It was an elegant little dinner for four, arranged upon a round table.

There was no possibility of estrangement, in so small a party as that.

Sir Lemuel talked gayly, and without effort, for he was very happy. Lady Belgrade chattered, because she was spiritually a magpie. And as both constantly appealed to ”Mr. Scott,” or to Salome, it was impossible for either of the lovers to relapse into awkward silence. The conversation was general and lively.

Sir Lemuel Levison and Lady Belgrade would have talked in the most flattering manner of ”Mr. Scott's” leaders, if that young gentleman had not laughingly waived off all such direct compliments.

When dinner was over, Lady Belgrade gave the signal, and arose from the table. Salome followed her, and left the two gentlemen to their wine.

”It afflicts me to have to call you Mr. Scott, my lord,” said Sir Lemuel, when he found himself alone with his guest.

”Then call me John, as you used to do when I rode upon your foot in my childhood, and when I used to come to you in all my worst sc.r.a.pes in boyhood--I shall never resume my t.i.tle, Sir Lemuel,” replied the young man.

”Never!” exclaimed the banker.

”Never, Sir Lemuel. A pauper lord is rather a ridiculous object. I will never be one.”

”You _could_ not be one. I won't hear you say such things about yourself. See here, John. Do you know why I bought Lone when I knew it was to be sold?”

”I suppose because you wanted it.”

”Now what did I want with Lone? I, an old widower, without family, except one little girl at school? I did not want Lone. I wanted you to have it.

But I knew that if I did not buy it some one else would. And--I had this only daughter, who would have Lone after me. And I thought perhaps--But then you disappeared, you know, and no one on earth could tell for three years what had become of you, when you suddenly turned up as Mr. John Scott at the Premier's dinner.”

The banker paused, and ran his hand through his gray hair.

The young man looked at him with curiosity and interest.

”Plague take it all! her mother, if she has one, could manage this matter so much better than I can,” muttered the banker, as he poured out a gla.s.s of wine and drank it. ”Well, Lord Arondelle--I will give myself the pleasure of calling you so while we are _tete-a-tete_ 'over the walnuts and wine.' Lord Arondelle, there is my daughter; what do you think of her?” he demanded, bending down his gray brows and fixing his keen blue eyes scrutinizingly upon the young man's face which flushed at the suddenness of the question. But he quickly recovered himself, and replied in a low, reverent tone:

”I think Miss Levison the loveliest young creature I have ever had the happiness to know.”

”You do! So do _I_! I think so too. And the man who gets my girl to wife will get a pearl of price.”

”I truly believe that,” said the young man, with an involuntary sigh.

”That is right! Ahem! Bother it! a woman could do this so much better than such a blundering old fellow as I! Well, there! Salome has, in the three years since her first entrance into society, refused half a score of eligible men. She is, and always has been, perfectly free from any such engagement. If you are equally free, my dear marquis--(If I could only be her mother for three seconds)--Ahem! if you are equally free, and if you admire my girl as you say you do, and if you can win her affections--she--she shall be yours, and I will settle Lone upon her.

There, her mother would have done this better, I know. So much better that you would have proposed to my daughter without ever dreaming that the suggestion came from our side. But as for me, I have flung my girl at your head, nothing less!” grumbled the banker.

”My dear Sir Lemuel,” said the young man, with some emotion, as he left his seat and came and stood by the banker's chair, leaning affectionately over him; ”when I first met your lovely daughter, I was so deeply impressed by her rare sweetness, gentleness, intelligence--ah! Heaven knows what it was! It was something more than all these. In a word, I was so deeply impressed by her perfect loveliness, that had I been as really the heir of Lone as I was the Marquis of Arondelle, I should at once have cultivated her further acquaintance, and, before this, have laid my heart and hand, t.i.tles and estates, at her feet.”

”Well, well, my boy? Well, my dear lad, why didn't you do it?” inquired the banker, with tears rising to his kind eyes.

”I have just told you, because I was a ruined man,” said the marquis with mournful dignity.

”'A ruined man?'” echoed the banker, with almost angry earnestness.

”_I_ know that you are _not_ a ruined man! And you know, even better than I do, because you have more brains than I have; YOU know that no young man, sound in body and sound in mind, can be ruined by any financial calamity that can fall upon him. You love my daughter, you say. Well, then, you have my authority to ask her to be your wife.

There, what do you say?”