"Shall you go to Scotland, Yorke?" Lady Eleanor asked. She knew he had half a dozen invitations this year. He was never without them any autumn, but this year they were more numerous than usual. Yorke Auchester running loose and up to his ears in debt, and Yorke Auchester engaged to Lady Eleanor Dallas were two very different persons and by a singular coincidence everybody who had a house and a moor in the Highlands invited him. But he said he would not go to Scotland.
"I'm tired of it!" he said. "The place is eaten up by tourists at this time of the year. I'd rather stay in London!"
"Well, then, I will not go. I was going to the Casaubon's, but I will send an excuse—"
"Oh, no, don't do that!" he said, with the most unselfish alacrity. "Don't you stay up in town for my sake; it's beastly dull now, I know."
Lady Eleanor thought a moment.
"I will tell you what I will do," she said. "Aunt and I will go to White Place. It is just a nice distance from town, and—and if you should ever think of running down, why—aunt will be glad to see you, sir."
The ladies went to White Place, and Yorke stayed in town. But, of course, he ran down to the big house very frequently, and when he went he was made much of, as was only right and natural. Would not the place be his own some day, or at any rate would he not be the lord and master of the mistress of it? Indeed, the servants received him as if he were already master, and understood that their quickest and shortest way of pleasing their mistress was by winning the favor of this handsome lover of hers. Everything was done that man—ah! and woman; and how much quicker is woman—could do to amuse and please him. A stud of horses filled the stables—his own being the most honorably housed—the keepers received carte blanche as to the game; a suite of rooms in the best position, and so luxuriously furnished that poor Yorke laughed grimly when he first entered them—was set apart for him. Lady Eleanor would have filled the house with guests, but it seemed that Yorke was not in the humor for company. "Which is so nice and sweet of him!" murmured Lady Eleanor. His favorite wine had been brought down from London, and the cook had a list of the dishes to which his lordship was most partial. Happy! If he was not happy he was the most ungrateful man among the sons of them.
"You are spoiling him, my dear," Lady Denby ventured to remonstrate gently. It was the morning that Lady Eleanor had given orders for a special wire from the station to the house, so that his highness might let them know when he was coming. "You are spoiling him all you know how, and that's always a bad thing for a man, especially before marriage; because, you see, when he is married he will expect to be spoiled a great deal more—and you haven't left yourself any room."
"I dare say," Lady Eleanor retorted. "I don't care. Besides, it isn't true. You can't spoil Yorke."
"Do you mean that nature has done it for you already?" said Lady Denby, sweetly.