“I don’t care for the number of his years, but he is old enough to be fussy and officious, and he has that atrocious activity which displays itself with certain middle-aged people by a quick, short step, abrupt speech, and a grin when they don’t hear you. Oh, don’t you hate that deaf-man’s smile?”
Mr. M’Kinlay would fain have smiled too, but he feared the category it would sentence him to.
“I’m afraid you expected to find my brother here, but he’s away; he is cruising somewhere along the coast of Ireland.”
“I was aware of that. Indeed, I am on my way to join him, and only diverged at Crewe to come over here, that I might bring him the latest advices from home.”
“And are you going yachting?” said she, with a sort of surprise that sent the blood to M’Kinlay’s face and even his forehead.
“No, Miss Courtenay, I trust not, for I detest the sea; but Sir Gervais wants my advice about this Irish estate he is so full of.”
“Oh! don’t let him buy anything in Ireland. I entreat of you, Mr. M’Kinlay, not to sanction this. None of us would ever go there, not even to look at it.”
“I imagine the mischief is done.”
“What do you mean by being done?”
“That the purchase is already made, the agreement ratified, and everything completed but the actual payment.”