‘She didn’t say that?’
‘She did. She actually pushed me to promise I should ask her.’
‘Which you never would.’
‘Of that I will not affirm I am quite positive; but I certainly intend to press my uncle for some sort of recognition of the marriage—a civil note; better still, if it could be managed, an invitation to his house in town.’
‘You are a bold fellow to think of it.’
‘Not so bold as you imagine. Have you not often remarked that when a man of good connections is about to exile himself by accepting a far-away post, whether it be out of pure compassion or a feeling that it need never be done again, and that they are about to see the last of him; but, somehow—whatever the reason—his friends are marvellously civil and polite to him, just as some benevolent but eccentric folk send a partridge to the condemned felon for his last dinner.’
‘They do that in France.’
‘Here it would be a rumpsteak; but the sentiment is the same. At all events, the thing is as I told you, and I do not despair of Danesbury.’
‘For the letter, perhaps not; but he’ll never ask you to Bruton Street, nor, if he did, could you accept.’
‘You are thinking of Lady Maude.’