Spenser Churchill locked his arm in Lord Cecil’s reluctant one.
“Dear marquis!” he murmured, softly. “So generous and—er—thoughtful! You have made him very happy, my dear Cecil, and be sure that his happiness will find its reflection in your own heart. Ahem! Did you notice, my dear Cecil, how—er—unwell and, so to speak, generally feeble he looked?”
“No,” said Cecil, gravely.
“No? Then perhaps—indeed, I fervently hope—that it was only my fancy; but I certainly did think that I saw a change in him since last I was here. I do hope it was only fancy! The world could ill afford to lose so great and kind-hearted a man as our dear marquis! And so you are going to marry the beautiful and charming Lady Grace! Ah, youth, youth! what a blessed possession it is! How I envy you, my dear Cecil!”
“Thanks!” said Lord Cecil, curtly. “I’ll tell Lady Grace, who will feel duly complimented, I’ve no doubt.”
“Yes, yes—tell her, you happy rogue!” said the philanthropist, and, with a playful nod and laugh, he watched Cecil go down the hall and out at the door.
Then his face changed to one of keen reflection, and, as he went into the dining-room to the little lunch he had ordered, he muttered:
“Yes, the one I want is there! and the keys are in that drawer, which he always keeps locked. I must have that will—but how?”
When the invitations to an evening party at the Stoyle House were issued, they caused as much astonishment to the recipients and the world at large as if the trustees of the British Museum had announced their intention of giving a dance at that revered institution.
Only a very few of the last generation remembered any entertainment at Stoyle House, and they declared that the rumor must either be false, or that the marquis had at last, and very appropriately, gone out of his mind; and it was not until signs of the vast preparations for the event made themselves felt that the world began to realize the truth.