“I didn’t know you’d asked him,” said Charlie, with no sign of pleasure at the news. Victor had been at school and college with Charlie, and often, in his holidays, at the Court, for he was Sir Victor’s godson. Yet Charlie did not love him. For the rest, he was very rich, and was understood to cut something of a figure in London society.
“Mr. Sutton? Oh, I know him,” exclaimed Mrs. Marland. “He’s charming!”
“Then you shall entertain him,” said Charlie. “I resign him.”
“I can’t think why you’re not more pleased to have him here, Charlie,” remarked Lady Merceron. “He’s very popular in London, isn’t he, Vansittart?”
“I’ve met him at some very good houses,” answered Mr. Vansittart. And that, he seemed to imply, is better than mere popularity.
“The Bushells were delighted with him last time he was here,” continued Lady Merceron.
“There! A rival for you!” Mrs. Marland whispered.
Charlie laughed cheerfully. Sutton would be no rival of his, he thought; and if he and Millie liked one another, by all means let them take one another. A month before he would hardly have dismissed the question in so summary a fashion, for the habit of regarding Millie as a possibility and her readiness as a fact had grown strong by the custom of years, and, far as he was from a passion, he might not have enjoyed seeing her allegiance transferred to Victor Sutton. Certainly he would have suffered defeat from that hand with very bad grace. Now, however, everything was changed.
“Vansittart,” said Lady Merceron, “Charlie and I want to consult you (she often coupled Charlie’s hypothetical desire for advice with her own actual one in appeals to Mr. Vansittart) about Mr. Prime’s rent.”
“Oh, at the old farm?”