“Then, as to his own boy, I’ll write to him myself; it will be more friendly. Of course, all these matters are between ourselves.”
“Of course.”
“I mean strictly so; because Lady Vyner’s family and the Luttrells have had some differences, years and years ago. Too long a story to tell you now, and scarcely worth telling at any time; however, it was one of those unfinished games—you understand—where each party accuses the other of unfair play, and there are no quarrels less reparable. I say this much simply to show you the need of all your caution, and how the name ‘Luttrell,’ must never escape you.”
Mr. M’Kinlay would like, to have declared at once that the imprudence had been committed, and that the warning had come too late; but it required more time than he then had at his disposal to show by what a mere slip it had occurred, and at the same time how innocuously the tidings had fallen. Lastly, there was his pride as a business man in the way—the same sort of infallibility which makes Popes and Bank cashiers a little less and more than all humanity—so he simply bowed and smiled, and muttered a something that implied a perfect acquiescence. And now he took his leave, Lady Vyner graciously hoping soon to see him again; and Sir Within, with a courtesy that had often delighted Arch-Duchesses, declaring the infinite pleasure it would afford him to see him at Dalradern, with which successes triumphant, he shook Vyner’s hand, and hastened out to meet Miss Courtenay.
It is a very strange thing to mark how certain men, trained and inured to emergencies of no mean order—the lawyer and the doctor, for instance—who can await with unshaken courage the moment in which duty will summon them to efforts on whose issue another’s life is hanging,—I say, it is a strange thing to mark how such men are unnerved and flurried by that small by-play of society which fine ladies go through without a sensation or an emotion. The little commonplace, attentions, the weak flatteries, the small coquetteries that are the every-day incidents of such a sphere, strike them as all full of a direct application, a peculiar significance, when addressed to themselves; and thus was it Mr. M’Kinlay issued forth, imbued with a strong conviction that he had just taken leave of a charming family, endowed with many graceful gifts, amongst which conspicuously shone the discernment they showed in understanding himself.
“I see it,” muttered he below his breath—“I see it before me. There will come a day when I shall cross this threshold on still safer grounds. When Sir Gervais will be Vyner, and even——”
“I trust I have not kept you waiting?” said the very sweetest of voices, as Miss Courtenay, drawing her shawl around her, came forward. “I sincerely hope I have not perilled your journey; but I went to fetch you a rose. Here it is. Is it not pretty? They are the true Japanese roses, but they have no odour.”
Mr. M’Kinlay was in ecstasy; he declared that the flower was perfection; there never was such grace of outline, such delicacy of colouring, such elegance of form; and he protested that there was a faint, a very faint, but delicious perfume also.
Georgina laughed, one of those sweet-ringing little laughs beauties practise—just as great pianists do those seemingly hap-hazard chords they throw off, as in careless mood they find themselves before a piano—and they now walked along, side by side, towards the gate.
“You don’t know in what a position of difficulty my indiscretion of yesterday evening has placed me, Miss Courtenay,” said he. “Here has been Sir Gervais enjoining me to the strictest secresy.”