“Ah!” said Lothaw eagerly, with difficulty restraining himself from rushing toward her.
“Yes; shall I introduce you?”
Lothaw thought of Lady Coriander’s High Church proclivities, of the Cardinal, and hesitated: “No, I thank you, not now.”
CHAPTER V
Lothaw was maturing. He had attended two womens’ rights conventions, three Fenian meetings, had dined at White’s, and had danced vis-a-vis to a prince of the blood, and eaten off gold plates at Crecy House.
His stables were near Oxford, and occupied more ground than the University. He was driving over there one day, when he perceived some rustics and menials endeavoring to stop a pair of runaway horses attached to a carriage in which a lady and gentleman were seated. Calmly awaiting the termination of the accident, with high-bred courtesy Lothaw forbore to interfere until the carriage was overturned, the occupants thrown out, and the runaways secured by the servants, when he advanced and offered the lady the exclusive use of his Oxford stables.
Turning upon him a face whose perfect Hellenic details he remembered, she slowly dragged a gentleman from under the wheels into the light, and presented him with ladylike dignity as her husband, Major-General Camperdown, an American.
“Ah,” said Lothaw carelessly, “I believe I have some land there. If I mistake not, my agent, Mr. Putney Giles, lately purchased the State of—Illinois—I think you call it.”
“Exactly. As a former resident of the city of Chicago, let me introduce myself as your tenant.”