"One inducement, Lady Leyton," he said, his eyes looking over her head and carefully avoiding hers, "one irresistible inducement was my desire to be among the first to wish your ladyship the happiness and joy you so well deserve!" and he held out his hand.
Lady Leyton's face grew even paler as she gave him her hand, but as he grasped hers a shudder ran through her, and her eyes sought his face with a quick glance of alarm, for his hand was so cold that it struck like an icicle even through her glove.
And yet what could harm her? Was she not Blair's wife's, the Viscountess Leyton, the future Countess of Ferrers?
So, with a smile, she passed on.
[CHAPTER XXV.]
Christmas had gone and there was a vague suggestion of spring in the air; but it was cold still, and a huge fire burned in the great drawing-room of Leyton Court. It was after dinner, and the room, though by no means full, contained a fair number of people representing a small house party which had been spending the Christmas with the new earl: for the old earl had died a week after Blair and Violet Graham's wedding, and Blair reigns in his stead. Not only is he in possession of the old title and the estates and the large sum of money bequeathed by the old earl, but he has married one of the wealthiest young women in England, and consequently the world speaks of Lord Blair with bated breath, murmuring, "Lucky beggar!" and sometimes adding, "Just in time, too! Another month and he would have gone under, by George!"
And so they point him out to country cousins as he walks down Pall Mall, and whisper: "The Earl of Ferrers—the famous Lord Leyton, you know," and his county neighbors regard him with awe not far short of adoration, and everybody, great and small, combines to envy him.
Some say that the long course of reckless dissipation has told upon his constitution and the general break up, which is always and inevitably the result of burning the candle at both ends, has arrived. And yet those who are intimate with him have never heard him complain, and it is notorious that there is no harder rider in the hunt, and that the earl can out-walk, out-box, and generally out-do any man of his age and weight, just as he has always done. There is not a stoop, not a sign of weakness in the stalwart, well-knit figure; the face is as handsome, is even more distinguished looking than ever; but there is a strange look upon it, an expression of utter weariness and lassitude, a far-off, preoccupied air which falls upon it whenever he is silent and alone.
And he is very silent of late, and very fond of being alone. Leyton Court is a charming place to visit, it is in very truth Liberty Hall, and so long as a guest does not bore his host or his fellow guests, he may do just what he pleases. And this freedom which is enjoyed by his guests, the earl claims for himself. Sometimes days will pass without his being seen, excepting at the dinner table, or for a few hours afterward in the drawing-room; but while there he is a model of what a host should be. Courteous, attentive, gentle mannered, everything but the smiling and light-hearted Blair who is still remembered in club land as the one man who never had the "blues!"