“I will impress upon him how fashionable is the pursuit of the arts in these democratic days.” He added slowly, looking furtively at the lad: “And shall I tell him that one of these days you will marry very well indeed?”
Leo rose hastily, jarred discomposed.
“Aren’t you coming to lunch, Reuben?”
“Yes, I am ready.” He smiled to himself, and the two young men passed out together into the paved court-yard of the old inn.
They made their way up Chancery Lane into Holborn. Leo hated London almost as vehemently as his cousin loved it. It was the place, he said, which had succeeded better than any other in reducing life to a huge competitive examination. Its busy, characteristic streets, which Reuben regarded with an interest both passionate and affectionate, filled him with a dreary sensation of disgust and depression.
As they sat down to lunch at the First Avenue Hotel, Lord Norwood came into the dining-room. He was a tall, fair, aristocratic-looking young man, with a refined and thoughtful face, which, as he advanced towards his friend, broke into a peculiarly charming smile.
Leo exclaimed with impetuosity: “Oh, there’s Norwood!” But as the latter approached he stiffened into self-consciousness; somehow, he did not welcome the juxtaposition of his cousin and his friend. Acting on a sudden impulse he rose and met the latter half-way, and the two young men stood talking together in the middle of the room.
Reuben, after a moment’s hesitation, rose also and joined them. He greeted Lord Norwood, whom he had met once or twice before, with a little emphasis of deference, which was not lost on poor Leo, who hated himself at the same time for noticing it. Lord Norwood returned Reuben’s greeting with marked hauteur; that cousin of Leuniger’s was a snob, was not a person to be encouraged. In the young nobleman’s delicate, fastidious, but exceedingly borné mind there was no mercy for such as he.
Reuben, though he showed no signs of it, was keenly alive to the fact that he had been snubbed; was alive no less keenly to the many points in favour of the offender.
The Norwoods were people whom it hurt the subtler part of his vanity not to stand well with.