SYDNEY MAKES A MISTAKE.
There was a social side to Sydney's success which he was not slow to appreciate. A poor and ambitious man, bent on climbing the ladder of promotion, he was willing to avail himself of every help which came in his way. And Sir John Pynsent was good-naturedly ready to give him a helping hand.
During the past season he had found himself welcome in houses where the best society of the day was wont to congregate. He had several invitations for the autumn to places where it was considered a distinction to be invited; and, being a man of much worldly wisdom, he was disposed to be sorry that he had made arrangements to go abroad for two or three months. He was vague in detailing his plans to his friends; but in his own mind he was never vague, and he knew what he meant to do and where he was going to spend the vacation well enough, although he did not choose to take club acquaintances into his confidence.
But one invitation, given by Sir John Pynsent, for the Sunday subsequent to his election—or rather, from Saturday to Monday—he thought it expedient as well as pleasant to accept. Vanebury was a very few miles distant from St. John's country-house, and when the baronet, in capital spirits over his friend's success, urged him to run over to Culverley for a day or two, he could not well refuse.
"I am going for the Sunday," Sir John said confidentially, "but my wife doesn't expect me to stay longer until the session is over. I run down every week, you know, except when she's in town; but she always leaves London in June. My sister is under her wing, and she declares that late hours and the heat of London in July are very bad for girls. Of course, I'm glad that she looks after my sister so well."
Sydney recognized the fact that he had never before been taken into Sir John's confidence with respect to his domestic affairs.
"Lady Pynsent asked me the other day whether I could not get you to come down to us," Sir John continued. "I am always forgetting her messages; but if you can spare a couple of days now, we shall be very glad to have you. Indeed, you must not refuse," he said, hospitably. "And you ought to see something of the county."
Sydney had met Lady Pynsent in town. She was a large, showy-looking woman, with fair hair and a very aquiline nose; a woman who liked to entertain, and who did it well. He had dined at the Wentworths' house more than once, and he began to search in his memory for any face or figure which should recall Sir John's sister to his mind. But he could not remember her, and concluded, therefore, that she was in no way remarkable.
"I think I have not met Miss Pynsent," he took an opportunity of saying, by way of an attempt to refresh his memory.
"No? I think you must have seen her somewhere. But she did not go out much this spring: she is rather delicate, and not very fond of society. She's my half-sister, you know, considerably younger than I am—came out the season before last."