Part 62 (1/2)
”Not to-day.”
”But I have half done it already, Sir. It was a great liberty on my part, but I blundered into it.”
”Will you give us your company at dinner to-morrow, Mr. Grenfell?”
said Sir Within, without the hesitation of a moment.
Grenfell accepted, and, as Sir Within moved on, turning to Dolly, he said, ”Did you remark his agitation--did you notice the embarra.s.sment of his look and manner? Take my word for it, he has made her an offer.”
”Do you know it was pa.s.sing through my mind the very same thought; for as they turned the angle of the copse yonder, I saw her s.n.a.t.c.h her hand from him.”
”Come back and dine with me. Common delicacy forbids you to spoil a _tete-a-tete_.”
”I can't take the thing as coolly as you do, Grenfell. It's no laughing matter to me.”
”Don't laugh then, that's all. There can be no reason, however, that you should not dine; so step in, and let's be off.”
”I suspect you are right,” said Dolly, as they drove away. ”The old fool has capped his folly. I whispered to him to ask you to dine.”
”I heard you, and I marked the eager way he put it off till tomorrow.
His confusion got the better of all his tact, and showed me plainly enough that something had occurred to excite him greatly.”
”She pa.s.sed in, too, without ever looking up; she never bowed to us--did you notice that?”
”I saw it all, and I said to myself that Master Dolly's next dealings with Joel will entail heavy sacrifices.”
”It's not done yet,” said Ladarelle, with an affected boldness.
”No, nor need be for some weeks to come; but let us talk no more of it till we have dined. Vyner sent me his cellar-key this morning, and we'll see if his old wine cannot suggest some good counsel.”
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII. SCHEMING
They sat late over their wine, and telling the servants to go to bed, Grenfell ordered that he should not be called before noon on the next day.
According to custom, his serrant had left his letters by his bedside, and then retired noiselessly, and without disturbing him. It was already late in the afternoon when Grenfell awoke. The first note he opened was a short one from Sir Within, begging to excuse himself from the expected happiness of receiving Mr. Grenfell that day at dinner, as a sudden attack of his old enemy the gout had just laid him up in bed. ”If I have only my usual fortune,” added he, ”my seizure will be a brief one, and I may soon again reckon on the pleasure of seeing you here.”
The tidings of the illness was corroborated by Grenfell's valet, who saw the doctor travelling to Dalradern with all the speed of post-horses.
The thought of a courts.h.i.+p that ushered in a fit of the gout was just the sort of drollery that suited Grenfell's taste, and as he lay he laughed in derision of the old man and his schemes of future happiness.
He fancied himself telling the story at his club, and he dwelt on the opportunity it would afford to talk of ”Wardle” as his friend--one whose eccentricities he had therefore a perfect right to dish-up for the amus.e.m.e.nt of all others.
”Take this,” said he, giving the note to his servant, ”to Mr.
Ladarelle's room;” and, fancying to himself the varied moods with which that young gentleman would con over the intelligence, he lay back again in his bed.
There was no friends.h.i.+p--there was no reason for any--in the apparent interest he had taken in Ladarelle. It was not of the slightest moment to him which of the two, if either, should marry Kate O'Hara, save as to with whom he should stand best, and be most likely to be well received by in the future. Were she to marry Sir Within, the house would, in all likelihood, be closed to him. The old minister was too well versed in worldly matters not to cut off all the traditions of the past. He's sure either to introduce her into life under the auspices of some of his own high connexions, or to live totally estranged from all society. ”In either case, they are lost to me. Should she be married to Ladarelle, I--as the depositary of all that was secret in the transaction--I must needs have my influence. The house will of necessity be open to me, and I shall make of it what I please.” By this last reflection Grenfell summed up what his experience of life had largely supplied him with--that is, an inordinate liking for those establishments in which a large fortune is allied with something which disqualifies the possessors from taking their rightful position in society. In his estimation, there were no such pleasant houses as those where there was a ”screw loose,”
either in the conduct, the character, or the antecedents of the owners.
These houses were a sort of asylum for that large nomade population of highly amusing qualities and no characters, the men who had not ”done”