"And yet, here I am. My dear Stafford, I do not wish to upbraid you; I am simply making to myself a confession of weakness which would be pitiable in a stray dog, but which in a man of my years, with my experience of the world and reputation for common sense, is simply criminal. I do not wish to reproach you; I am quite aware that no reproach, not even the spectacle of my present misery would touch your callous and, permit me to frankly add, your abominably selfish nature; but I do want to ask quite calmly and without any display of temper: what the blazes you wanted to come this way round, and why you wanted me with you?"
The speaker, a slightly built man, just beyond the vague line of "young," glanced up with his dark, somewhat sombre and yet softly cynical eyes at the face of his companion who was driving. This companion was unmistakably young, and there was not a trace of cynicism in his grey-blue eyes which looked out upon the rain and mist with pleasant cheerfulness. He was neither particularly fair nor dark; but there was a touch of brighter colour than usual in his short, crisp hair; and no woman had yet found fault with the moustache or the lips beneath. And yet, though Stafford Orme's face was rather too handsome than otherwise, the signs of weakness which one sees in so many good-looking faces did not mar it; indeed, there was a hint of strength, not to say sternness, in the well-cut lips, a glint of power and masterfulness in the grey eyes and the brows above them which impressed one at first sight; though when one came to know him the impression was soon lost, effaced by the charm for which Stafford was famous, and which was perpetually recruiting his army of friends.
No doubt it is easy to be charming when the gods have made you good to look upon, and have filled your pockets with gold into the bargain. Life was a pageant of pleasure to Stafford Orme: no wonder he sang and smiled upon the way and had no lack of companions.
Even this man beside him, Edmund Howard, whose name was a by-word for cynicism, who had never, until he had met Stafford Orme, gone an inch out of his self-contained way to please or benefit a fellow-man, was the slave of the young fellow's imperious will, and though he made burlesque complaint of his bondage, did not in his heart rebel against it.
Stafford laughed shortly as he looked at the rain-swept hills round which the two good horses were taking the well-appointed phaeton.
"Oh, I knew you would come," he said. "It was just this way. You know the governor wrote and asked me to come down to this new place of his at Bryndermere—"
"Pardon me, Stafford; you forget that I have been down South—where I wish to Heaven I had remained!—and that I only returned yesterday afternoon, and that I know nothing of these sudden alarums and excursions of your esteemed parent."
"Ah, no; so you don't!" assented Stafford; "thought I'd told you: shall have to tell you now; I'll cut it as short as possible." He paused for a moment and gently drew the lash of the whip over the wet backs of the two horses who were listening intently to the voice of their beloved master. "Well, three days ago I got a letter from my father; it was a long one; I think it's the first long letter I ever received from him. He informed me that for some time past he has been building a little place on the east side of Bryndermere Lake, that he thought it would be ready by the ninth of this month; and would I go down—or is it up?—there and meet him, as he was coming to England and would go straight there from Liverpool. Of course there was not time for me to reply, and equally, of course, I prepared to obey. I meant going straight down to Bryndermere; and I should have done so, but two days ago I received a telegram telling me that the place would not be ready, and that he would not be there until the eleventh, and asking me to fill up the interval by sending down some horses and carriages. It occurred to me, with one of those brilliant flashes of genius which you have so often remarked in me, my dear Howard, that I would drive down, at any rate, part of the way; so I sent some of the traps direct and got this turn-out as far as Preston with me. With another of those remarkable flashes of genius, it also occurred to me that I should be devilish lonely with only Pottinger here," he jerked his head towards the groom, who sat in damp and stolid silence behind. "And so I wrote and asked you to come. Kind of me, wasn't it?"
"Most infernally kind," said Howard, with a sigh of a ton weight. "Had you any idea that your father was building this little place? By the way, I can't imagine Sir Stephen building anything that could be described as 'little'.
"You are right," assented Stafford, with a nod. "I heard coming down that it was a perfect palace of a place, a kind of palace of art and—and that sort of thing. You know the governor's style?" His brows were slightly knit for just a second, then he threw, as it were, the frown off, with a smile. "No, I knew nothing about it; I knew as little about it as I do of the governor himself and his affairs."