“Not, dear Lady Erpingham, if it give you the least—”
“My sweet girl,” interrupted Lady Erpingham, when a servant approached to announce visitors at the castle.
“Will you go into the saloon, Constance?” said the elder lady, as, thinking still of love and Arthur Godolphin, she took her way to her dressing-room to renovate her rouge.
It would have been a pretty amusement to one of the lesser devils, if, during the early romance of Lady Erpingham’s feelings towards Arthur Godolphin, he had foretold her the hour when she would tell how Arthur Godolphin died a miser—just five minutes before she repaired to the toilette to decorate the cheek of age for the heedless eyes of a common acquaintance. ‘Tis the world’s way! For my part, I would undertake to find a better world in that rookery opposite my windows.
CHAPTER XII.
DESCRIPTION OF GODOLPHIN’S HOUSE.—THE FIRST INTERVIEW.—ITS EFFECT ON CONSTANCE.
“But,” asked Constance, as, the next day, Lady Erpinghain and herself were performing the appointed pilgrimage to the ruins of Godolphin Priory, “if the late Mr. Godolphin, as he grew in years, acquired a turn of mind so penurious, was he not enabled to leave his son some addition to the pied de terre we are about to visit?”
“He must certainly have left some ready money,” answered Lady Erpinghain. “But is it, after all, likely that so young a man as Percy Godolphin could have lived in the manner he has done without incurring debts? It is most probable that he had some recourse to those persons so willing to encourage the young and extravagant, and that repayment to them will more than swallow up any savings his father might have amassed.”
“True enough!” said Constance; and the conversation glided into remarks on avaricious fathers and prodigal sons. Constance was witty on the subject, and Lady Erpingham laughed herself into excellent humour.