Lord Blair smiled nervously. “Or shall we say,” he suggested, “that I want to know what Muriel’s intentions are in regard to you. I have noticed the growing intimacy between you, and you will perhaps have observed that I have not discouraged it. But today, it is my duty to tell you, I saw you ... er ... ahem ... I saw you kiss one another good morning.”
Lord Blair, having thus delivered himself, sat back in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the younger man.
“Yes, that’s so,” the latter replied; “and I wish to Heaven you’d tell me what is to be done about it. I am afraid I have got to tell you that I love Muriel.” He leant forward and knitted his brows. “I’m sunk,” he groaned, running his hand through his hair. “It’s no good fighting against it any longer.”
Lord Blair drummed his fingers on the table. “Dear me, dear me!” he muttered. “And what does Muriel say about it?”
“I haven’t asked her,” Daniel replied. “I suppose she believes she cares for me, too; but that’s just the trouble: I’ve been wondering all night whether she knows her own mind. You see we are so totally unsuited to one another.”
“What makes you say that?” Lord Blair asked, obviously pained.
Daniel shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I’m a serious-minded sort of fellow, and Muriel seems to enjoy all this Society business which I detest.”
“She is young,” was the reply.
“And then I’m a comparatively penniless nobody, and I’ve heard her described as one of the most eligible young women in England.”
“Tut, tut,” Lord Blair ejaculated. “It is true that she will inherit whatever I am able to leave; but an alliance between the Lanes and the Blairs does not seem to me to be open to criticism. After all, our respective names have figured side by side in many pages of English history.”