“Surely not for this week's extravagance?” cried she, anxiously.
“Not exactly for this, but for everything. You know old Curtis's saying,—'It's always the last glass of wine makes a man tipsy.' But here comes the dinner, and let us turn to something pleasanter.”
It was so jolly to be alone again, all restraint removed, all terror of culinary mishaps withdrawn, and all the consciousness of little domestic shortcomings obliterated, that L'Estrange's spirit rose at every moment, and at last he burst out, “I declare to you, Julia, if that man had n't gone, I 'd have died out of pure inanition. To see him day after day trying to conform to our humble fare, turning over his meat on his plate, and trying to divide with his fork the cutlet that he would n't condescend to cut, and barely able to suppress the shudder our little light wine gave him; to witness all this, and to feel that I mustn't seem to know, while I was fully aware of it, was a downright misery. I 'd like to know what brought him here.”
“I fancy he could n't tell you himself. He paid an interminable visit, and we asked him to stop and dine with us. A wet night detained him, and when his servant came over with his dressing-bag or portmanteau, you said, or I said—I forget which—that he ought not to leave us without a peep at our coast scenery.”
“I remember all that; but what I meant was, that his coming here from Castello was no accident. He never left a French cook and Château Lafitte for cold mutton and sour sherry without some reason for it.”
“You forget, George, he was on his way to Lisconnor when he came here. He was going to visit the mines.”
“By the by, that reminds me of a letter I got this evening. I put it in my pocket without reading. Is n't that Vickars' hand?”
“Yes; it is his reply, perhaps, to my letter. He is too correct and too prudent to write to myself, and sends the answer to you.”
“As our distinguished guest is not here to be shocked, Julia, let us hear what Vickars says.”
“'My dear Mr. L'Estrange, I have before me a letter from your sister, expressing a wish that I should consent to the withdrawal of the sum of two thousand pounds, now vested in consols under my trusteeship, and employ these moneys in a certain enterprise which she designates as the coal-mines of Lisconnor. Before acceding to the grave responsibility which this change of investment would impose upon me, even supposing that the Master'—who is the Master, George?”