“Well, Sir, go on; finish what you were about to say.”
“Certainly not, Sir Within, when the expression with which you hear me declares that I am taking too great a liberty.”
“It is too late for apology, Sir. You have already transgressed.”
“I never intended an apology, Sir Within, for I took care not to incur what might require one. When I saw, or fancied I saw, that my remarks, well meant as they were, might not be as acceptable as I desired, I forbore from completing them; that is all.”
“And you did well, Sir!” said the other, haughtily, while, with a proud wave of his hand, he seemed to say the subject must be dropped.
“I mean to return to town to-morrow,” said Mr. Ladarelle, after a pause; “but my son, with your kind permission, will be a burden on your hospitality for a few days longer.”
“I am proud to have his company,” said the old minister, with a courteous bow; but the other, not noticing it, went on: “He wants to see that mill. Hoare says, that without some arrangement about the supply of water, he must insist upon an abatement; that your Neptunes, and Dryads, and river-gods, consume far more than goes over his wheel; and though, perhaps, it is a little premature on our part to enter upon this matter, yet, as the man has a lease renewable at his pleasure——”
“With your gracious leave, it is on a question of wine, and not of water, I will ask your opinion. I have got some very old Steinberger, which I purpose to have your judgment on, and as I hear the first bell ringing, probably we have not much time to lose. This is the shortest way back to the house.”
The banker made no reply; he plodded on moodily towards the Castle, and mounted the stairs to his dressing-room, neither pleased with his host nor himself, nor, indeed, with the rest of the world.
It is very probable that Sir Within retired to dress for dinner far more deeply wounded and far more irritated by this interview than his guest. With persons as plain spoken as Mr. Ladarelle, Sir Within had held very little intercourse in life. He had always played the game with those of the most refined and the most susceptible politeness. Men who would no more have committed a rudeness than a murder, and it was no mean trial of his nerves to be told, not merely that he was old, but that he was of that age in which life was something more than precarious. The ex-envoy felt, in fact, as he might have felt had some one ordered his carriage before the time he himself had told his coachman to come; thus intimating, it is possible, from reasons not entered upon or discussed, that he might think proper to leave earlier than he had contemplated. He changed colour so often, that he had to supply a little extra rouge to his cheek; and his nerves were so shaken, that he could not descend to the drawing-room without a little dram of Maraschino and ether.