He rose with a slight yawn, and walking to the window, looked out into the darkening evening. The old limbs might have creaked but for their perpetual lubrications. Not an inquiry as to the course of his travels did he address to his undesirable heir. It was more than enough for him that he had returned at all.
“If not that you have discovered a palate,” said he, with a sour grin, “then I suppose I am to attribute this visit to your high sense of duty.”
A carriage drew up on the stones below as he spoke.
“Enfin! mon cher—mon aimable chevalier!” he muttered to himself with relief.
“You have company, sir?” said Ned.
“You can stop for all that,” said the uncle tartly. “Madame, as you have seen, knows how to take her entertainment of a monkey.”
Madame was ushered in as he spoke. Ned’s only wonder, upon identifying her as the lady of the curricle, was over the fact of her separate lodging. He had expected to find her in my lord’s suite. She came into the candle-light, an amazing figure of elegance, rouged, plastered, and befeathered, but even surprisingly decorous in attire. She wore long mittens on her arms, the upper exposed inches of which flickered with a curious muscularity when she fanned herself.
“So,” she said, making exaggerated play with her eyes over the rim of the toy, “we shall have the fatted calf to dinner. And did you find the husks of democracy to your liking, sir?”
“I found them tough,” said Ned.
She laughed like an actress. She shook her finger at him archly.