"No;—not angry. He knows the world too well not to be quite sure that something of the kind would happen. And he is too fond of his son not to think well of anything that he does. It wasn't to be supposed that they should never meet. After all that has passed I am bound to make him welcome if he chooses to come here, and as Mary's lover to give him the best welcome that I can. He won't stay, I suppose, because he has got no clothes."
"But he has;—John brought in a portmanteau and a dressing-bag out of the gig." So that was settled.
In the mean time Lord Carstairs had taken Mary out for a walk into the wood, and she, as she walked beside him, hardly knew whether she was going on her head or her heels. This, indeed, it was to have a lover. In the morning she was thinking that when three years were past he would hardly care to see her ever again. And now they were together among the falling leaves, and sitting about under the branches as though there was nothing in the world to separate them. Up to that day there had never been a word between them but such as is common to mere acquaintances, and now he was calling her every instant by her Christian name, and telling her all his secrets.
"We have such jolly woods at Carstairs," he said; "but we shan't be able to sit down when we're there, because it will be winter. We shall be hunting, and you must come out and see us."
"But you won't be there when I am," she said, timidly.
"Won't I? That's all you know about it. I can manage better than that."
"You'll be at Oxford."
"You must stay over Christmas, Mary; that's what you must do. You musn't think of going till January."
"But Lady Bracy won't want me."
"Yes, she will. We must make her want you. At any rate they'll understand this; if you don't stay for me, I shall come home even if it's in the middle of term. I'll arrange that. You don't suppose I'm not going to be there when you make your first visit to the old place."