Part 13 (2/2)
Miss Courtenay was silent; when she next spoke, it was about the evening--the air was growing fresh, and the twilight deepening. ”I wonder in what mood we are to find Mr. M'Kinlay--if we are to find him at all.”
”I own it would be very awkward; but I am such a coward about meeting him, that I half wish he had gone away, and that we were left to make our lame excuses in a letter.”
”I have to confess that the matter sits very lightly on _my_ conscience,” said Georgina, ”though I am the real delinquent. I don't like him, and I shall not be very unhappy if he knows it.”
”Possibly enough, but such a breach of all politeness----”
”My dear Laura, he has met this incident, or something very like it, a hundred times. Earls and Viscounts have made appointments with him and forgotten him; he has been left standing on that terrace, or pacing moodily up that street, for hours long, and, as Sir Within said very smartly, consoled by the item that would record it in the bill of costs.”
”Yes, I remember the remark; it struck me as the only bit of vulgarity about him.”
”Vulgarity! Sir Within Wardle vulgar!”
”Well, I have no other word for it, Georgy. It was the observation that might readily have come from any ordinary and common-place person, and sounded unsuitably from the lips of a very polished gentleman.”
”Poor Sir Within! if in a gloomy moment you may be wondering to yourself what harsh or envious things your wealth, your splendour, and your taste may have provoked from us, I am certain that you never imagined that the imputation of being vulgar was one of them!”
Fortunately there was no time to continue a theme so threatening to be unpleasant, for already they were at the gate lodge, and a loud summons with the bell had announced their arrival.
CHAPTER IX. MR. M'KINLAY'S TRIALS
Mr. M'Kinlay was awakened from a pleasant nap oyer the ”Man of Feeling,”
which he had persuaded himself he was reading with all the enjoyment it had once afforded him, by the French clock oyer the mantelpiece performing a lively waltz, and then striking five!
He started, rubbed his eyes, and looked about him, not very certain for some minutes where he was. The hum of the bees, the oppressive perfume of the sweetbriar and the jessamine, and the gentle drip-drip of a little trickling rivulet over some rock-work, seemed still to steep his senses in a pleasant dreamy languor, and a sort of terror seized him that the ladies might possibly have come in, and found him there asleep.
He rang the bell and summoned Rickards at once.
”Where are the ladies?” asked he, eagerly.
”Not come back yet, Sir. It's very seldom they stay out so long. I can make nothing of it.”
”You told her Ladys.h.i.+p I was here, didn't you?”
”I told Miss Georgina, Sir, and of course she told my Lady.”
”What's your dinner-hour?”
”Always early, Sir, when Sir Gervais is from home. My Lady likes four, or half-past.”
”And it's five now!”
”Yes, Sir; a quarter-past five. It's the strangest thing I ever knew,”
said he, going to the window, which commanded a view of the road at several of its windings through the valley. ”We have an excellent lake trout for dinner; but by good luck it's to be grilled, not boiled, or it would be ruined utterly.”
”Capital things, those red trout,” said M'Kinlay, to whom, like most of his craft and way of life, the pleasures of the table offered great temptations. ”Is your cook a good one, Rickards?”
<script>