Whatever my looks might have conveyed, I know not, but I was not given the opportunity for a more explicit inquiry, when my mother, in her stateliest of manners, arose and said,—
“Richard, I wish to present you to my esteemed friend, Lord Netherby; a gentleman to whose kindness you are indebted for any favorable construction I can put upon your folly, and who has induced me to receive you here to-day.”
“If I knew, madam, that such influence had been necessary, I should have hesitated before I laid myself under so deep an obligation to his Lordship, to whose name and merits I confess myself a stranger.”
“I am but too happy, Captain Forester,” interposed the Earl, “if any little interest I possess in Lady Wallincourt's esteem enables me to contribute to your reconciliation. I know the great delicacy of an interference, in a case like the present, and how officious and impertinent the most respectful suggestions must appear, when offered by one who can lay no claim, at least to your good opinion.”
A very significant emphasis on the word “your,” a look towards my mother, and a very meaning smile from her in reply, at once revealed to me what, till then, I had not suspected,—that his Lordship meditated a deeper influence over her Ladyship's heart than the mere reconciliation of a truant son to her esteem.
“I believe, my Lord,” said I, hastily, and I fear not without some anger,—“I believe I should not have dared to decline your kind influence in my behalf, had I suspected the terms on which you would exert it. I really was not aware before that you possessed, so fully, her Ladyship's confidence.”
“If you read the morning papers, Captain Forester,” said he, with the blandest smile, “you could scarcely avoid learning that my presence here is neither an intrusion nor an impertinence.”
“My dear mother,” cried I, forgetting all, save the long-continued grief by which my father's memory was hallowed, “is this really the case?”
“I can forgive your astonishment,” replied she, with a look of anger, “that the qualities you hold so highly in your esteem should have met favor from one so placed and gifted as the Earl of Netherby.”
“Nay, madam; on the contrary. My difficulty is to think how any new proffer of attachment could find reception in a heart I fondly thought closed against such appeals; too full of its own memories of the past to profane the recollection by—”