"Did she really say that?"
"Not in so many words, perhaps, but that was what she meant. You wouldn't object to Jim marrying Pamela, would you?"
"No, I shouldn't object," said Lord Crowborough, after a pause of consideration. "I think I should be rather glad. Pamela is a very charming girl. But I doubt if there's anything in it all the same. I happened to notice that Jim wasn't much with her this afternoon. He was much more with little Judith, and they seemed to be getting on extraordinarily well together. Oddly enough, it did cross my mind that something might come out of that by and by."
"It's curious you should say so, because that is what Mrs. Eldridge seemed to be hinting at. She never says anything straight out. However, we shall see. She was very anxious that we should get up a picnic. I think her idea was to help matters on, though she wouldn't have acknowledged that. I shouldn't have taken to the suggestion if I had seen any reason why matters shouldn't be helped on. I should be rather disappointed if it is Judith and not Pamela. But we shall see. I shall let Mrs. Eldridge have her picnic, and we shall see what comes of it. Then we shall know what to do."
Lord Crowborough met Lord Eldridge in London by appointment. He went up for the day, on purpose to do so. It was a little unfortunate that Lord Eldridge's engagements prevented his accepting an invitation to lunch, for a more leisured conversation in a mellower atmosphere than that of his office in the City might have led to more satisfactory results.
For the mission was a failure. "I shan't take any further steps," said Lord Eldridge; firmly. "It's very kind of you to want to bring us together again, and as far as I'm concerned I'm not going to keep up a feud. You can tell Edmund that, if you like. But it's he who has created the feud, and if he wants it ended it's for him to make the advance. I've done every mortal thing that he has wanted me to do, unreasonable as well as reasonable, and it has been of no use. There's nothing more left for me to do."
"Well, there was something—he didn't tell me what it was—that he thought you might have done. But he said he didn't mind now whether you did it or not."
"Yes, exactly. That's how it goes all the time. I don't wonder he didn't tell you what it was. I don't mind telling you. I was to dismiss my head gardener, out of hand, at a word from him. I didn't see any reason to do it, when I had looked into the complaint, which I did do. But I have taken the man away from Hayslope, and got him another job, solely and entirely to remove that cause of complaint. And now I'm told he doesn't mind whether I do it or not. Why, he made it the final cause of the split between us! He wouldn't come to my house again as long as that man was there. I haven't seen him since, and really, Crowborough, I don't want to see him. I don't know what has come over him, but there's nothing one can do to placate him. I'm not going to take any more trouble about it." He turned sharply round in his chair. "What the devil is it that he complains of?" he asked in a tone of strong irritation. "I'm just what I've always been to him. We've always got on well together up till now."
"Well, he says that you're not just the same," said Lord Crowborough, with weighty insistence. "And I'm not sure that you are, you know, William. Of course you've got a deal more money than most of us, and that seems to be complicating things at Hayslope."
"Complicating things! I'll tell you this, that Edmund will find things a good deal more complicated without my money to help him along. He's got no head for business, not even estate business, which he thinks he knows all about. I don't think he has the least idea what a help I've been to him over that. I've been rather keen that he shouldn't know. But now that it will all be on his own shoulders I think he'll find his troubles increasing on him pretty heavily."