“Cannot we manage to have some people to meet Lord Culduff at dinner? Who are the Gages who left their cards?”
“They sent them—not left them. Montifort Gage is the master of the hounds, and, I believe, a person of some consideration here. He does not, however, appear to invite much intimacy. His note acknowledging our subscription—it was a hundred pounds too—was of the coldest, and we exchanged a very few formal words at the meet yesterday.”
“Are we going to repeat the Herefordshire experiment here, then?” And she asked the question with a sparkling eye and a flushed cheek, as though the feeling it excited was not easily to be repressed.
“There 's a Sir Roger Kennedy, too, has called.”
“Yes, and Harding says he is married; but his wife's name is not on the card.”
“I take it they know very little of the habits of the world. Let us remember, Marion, where we are. Iceland is next door but one. I thought Harding would have looked to all this; he ought to have taken care that the county was properly attentive. An agent never wishes to see his chief reside on the property. It is like in my own career,—one is only chargé d'affaires when the head of the legation is on leave.”
“And this was the county we were told was ready to receive us with a sort of frantic enthusiasm. I wonder, Temple, do people ever tell the truth!”
“Yes, when they want you not to believe them. You see, Marion, we blundered here pretty much as we blundered in England. You'll not get the governor to believe it, nor perhaps even Augustus, but there is a diplomacy of everyday life, and people who fancy they can dispense with it invariably come to grief. Now I always told them—indeed I grew tired telling them—every mile that separates you from a capital diminishes the power of your money. In the city you reign supreme, but to be a county magnate you need scores of things besides a long credit at your banker's.”
A very impatient toss of the head showed that Marion herself was not fully a convert to these sage opinions, and it was with a half-rude abruptness that she broke in by asking how he intended to convey his invitation to Lord Culduff.
“There 's the difficulty,” said he, gravely. “He is going about from one place to another. Harding says he was at Rathbeggan on Sunday last, and was going on to Dinasker next day. I have been looking over the map, but I see no roads to these places. I think our best plan is to despatch Lacy with a letter. Lacy is the smartest fellow we have, and I think will be sure to find him. But the letter, too, is a puzzle.”