Another acquaintance of Sydney's privately volunteered the information later in the day that Miss Pynsent had sixty thousand pounds of her own, and was reputed to be clever.
"I hate clever women," Sydney said, with an inward growl at his sister Lettice, whose conduct had lately given him much uneasiness. "A clever woman and an heiress! Ye gods, how very ugly she must be."
His friend laughed in a meaning manner, and wagged his head mysteriously. But what he would have said remained unspoken, because at that moment Sir John rejoined them.
Sydney flattered himself that he was not impressible, or at least that the outward trappings of wealth and rank did not impress him. But he was distinctly pleased to find that Sir John's carriage and pair, which met them at the station, was irreproachable, and that Culverley was a very fine old house, situated in the midst of a lovely park and approached by an avenue of lime-trees, which, Sir John informed him, was one of the oldest in the country. Sydney had an almost unduly keen sense of the advantage which riches can bestow, and he coveted social almost as much as professional standing for himself. It was, perhaps, natural that the son of a poor man, who had been poor all his life, and owed his success to his own brains and his power of continued work, should look a little enviously on the position so readily attained by men of inferior mental calibre, but of inherited and ever-increasing influence, like Sir John Pynsent and his friends. Sydney never truckled: he was perfectly independent in manner and in thought; but the good things of the world were so desirable to him that for some of them—as he confessed to himself with a half-laugh at his own weakness—he would almost have sold his soul.
They arrived at Culverley shortly before dinner, and Sydney had time for very few introductions before going to the dining-room. He was surprised to find a rather large party present. There were several London men and women whom he knew already, and who were staying in the house, and there was a contingent of county people, who had only come to dinner. The new member for Vanebury was made much of, especially by the county folk; and as Sydney was young, handsome, and a good talker, he soon made himself popular amongst them. For himself, he did not find the occasion interesting, save as a means of social success. Most of the men were dull, and the women prim and proper: there were not more than two pretty girls in the whole party.
"That's the heiress, I suppose," thought Sydney, hearing a spectacled, sandy-haired young woman who looked about five-and-twenty addressed as Miss Pynsent. "Plain, as I thought. There's not a woman here worth looking at, except Mrs. George Murray. I'll talk to her after dinner. Not one of them is a patch on little Milly. I wonder how she would look, dressed up in silks and satins. Pynsent knows how to choose his wine and his cook better than his company, I fancy."
But his supercilious contempt for the county was well veiled, and the people who entered into conversation with Sydney Campion, the new M.P. for Vanebury, put him down as a very agreeable man, as well as a rising politician.
His own position was pleasant enough. He was treated with manifest distinction—flattered, complimented, well-nigh caressed. In the drawing-room after dinner, Sydney, surrounded by complacent and adulating friends, really experienced some of the most agreeable sensations of his life. He was almost sorry when the group gradually melted away, and conversation was succeeded by music. He had never cultivated his taste for music; but he had a naturally fine ear, upon which ordinary drawing-room performances jarred sadly. But, standing with his arms folded and his back against the wall, in the neighborhood of Mrs. George Murray, the prettiest woman in the room, he became gradually aware that Lady Pynsent's musicians were as admirable in their way as her cook. She would no more put up with bad singing than bad songs; and she probably put both on the same level. She did not ask amateurs to sing or play; but she had one or two professionals staying in the house, who were "charmed" to perform for her; and she had secured a well-known "local man" to play accompaniments. In the case of one at least of the professionals, Lady Pynsent paid a very handsome fee for his services; but this fact was not supposed to transpire to the general public.
When the professionals had done their work there was a little pause, succeeded by the slight buzz that spoke of expectation. "Miss Pynsent is going to play," Mrs. Murray said to Sydney, putting up her long-handled eyeglass and looking expectantly towards the grand piano. "Oh, now, we shall have a treat."
"Sixty thousand pounds," Sydney said to himself with a smile; but he would not for the world have said it aloud. "We must put up with bad playing from its fortunate possessor, I suppose." And he turned his head with resignation in the direction of the little inner drawing-room, in which the piano stood. This room should, perhaps, be described as an alcove, rather than a separate apartment: it was divided from the great drawing-room by a couple of shallow steps that ran across its whole width, so that a sort of natural stage was formed, framed above and on either side by artistically festooned curtains of yellow brocade.