"Mamma, believe me, I shall have more patience with him when I am walking over Ireland with Eustace and all those fellows, than when—I say, here he comes! Now, I'll ask his leave; and do you back me up, like the very best and dearest mother that ever was."
"No, no!" said Lady Anne, hastily. "If it must be, let me manage it. Go into the house before he sees you, change your dress, and come back; bring your drawing things, and that unfinished sketch of the west front: go, now, if you want me to help you."
Villiers fled by the door through which he had appeared, and hastened to obey his mother's mysterious directions, wondering much what they might mean.
Sir Aymer came up the terrace stops and joined his daughter-in-law.
"Out still, Lady Anne?"
"Yes, it is such a lovely afternoon. I had a letter from my brother this morning, Sir Aymer. He wants Villiers to go to Deepdale for a time, and I should like him to go, if you don't mind. I wish him to know and to be liked by my own people."
If Lady Anne had really wished her son to go to Deepdale, she would never have made that speech. In fact, it looked rather as if she wished to provoke the old gentleman.
Sir Aymer fell into the trap, if trap it were, at once.
"I do not wish my heir to be made a Radical, Lady Anne! The Egertons have been Conservatives ever since—well, for many generations; and your brother is enough to corrupt any lad, particularly one who, like Villiers, has not an ounce of brains."
"I do not think his Eton course shows any lack of brains," Lady Anne replied, quietly, and then went on to urge several reasons why Villiers should go to Deepdale; among others, his intimacy with the Miss Lowthers.