His present speculations took this form. Vyner will at once return to England, and go back to “the House;” he’ll want occupation, and he’ll want, besides, to reinstate himself with the world. With his position and his abilities—fair abilities they were—he may aspire to office, and Grenfell liked official people. They were a sort of priesthood, who could slip a friend into the sanctuary occasionally, not to add, that all privileged classes have an immense attraction for the man whose birth has debarred him from their intimacy. Now, he could not present himself more auspiciously to the Vyners than in the company of Sir Within Wardle, who was most eager to renew all his former relations with them. Nor was it quite impossible but that Grenfell might seem to be the agency by which the reconciliation was brought about. A clever stroke of policy that, and one which would doubtless go far to render him acceptable to the “women.”
If we must invade the secresy of a very secret nature, we must confess that Mr. Grenfell, in his gloomier hours, in his dark days at home, when dyspeptic and depressed, speculated on the possible event that he might at last be driven to marry. He thought of it the way men think of the precautions instilled by a certain time of life, the necessity of more care in diet, more regular hours, and such-like.
There would come a time, he suspected, when country-houses would be less eager for him, and the young fellows who now courted and surrounded him, would have themselves slipped into “mediævalty,” and need him no more. It was sad enough to think of, but he saw it, he knew it. Nothing, then, remained but a wife.
It was all-essential—indeed indispensable—that she should be a person of family and connexions; one, in fact, that might be able to keep open the door of society—even half ajar—but still enough to let him slip in and mingle with those inside. Vyner’s sister-in-law was pretty much what he wanted. She was no longer young, and consequently her market-value placed her nearer to his hopes; and although Sir Gervais had never yet made him known to Lady Vyner or Georgina, things were constantly done abroad that could not have occurred at home. Men were dear friends on the Tiber who would not have been known to each other on the Thames. The result of all his meditations was, that he must persuade Sir Within to cross the Alps, and then, by some lucky chance or other, come unexpectedly upon the Vyners. Fortune should take care of the rest.
Arrived at this conclusion, and his third cigar all but smoked out, he was thinking of bed, when a tap came to his door. Before he had well time to say “Come in,” the door opened, and young Ladarelle’s valet, Mr. Fisk, stood before him.
“I hope you’ll forgive me, Sir,” said he, submissively, “for obtruding upon you at such an hour, but I have been all over Paris, and only found out where you were this minute. I was at the station this evening when you drove up there, but I lost you in the crowd, and never could find you again.”
“All which zeal implies that you had some business with me,” said Grenfell, slowly.
“Yes, Sir, certainly. It is what I mean, Sir,” said he, wiping his forehead, and betraying by his manner a considerable amount of agitation.