He was just twenty when they returned home, at the commencement of the year; Lady Carruthers, worn out with travel and excitement, longing for rest. There was more to be done—her son had been presented at most of the courts of Europe; he must attend the first levees held in London this season.
The Carruthers had a magnificent mansion in Belgravia. Miss Hautville begged for one year more of seclusion and privacy, so that Lady Hildegarde and her son went to London alone. She remained there for a week, and then, finding her son afloat in London society, she returned to Ulverston.
And Basil Carruthers, the dreamy, ardent, romantic boy, remained in London alone.
CHAPTER VII.
A Modern Bayard.
Perhaps Lady Carruthers never did a more unwise thing than when she left her son, with his peculiar temperament and notions, to go through a London season alone. She honestly believed herself to be doing right. She was ill and unable to bear the whirl of fashion and gaiety. She could not withdraw him from town to spend the gayest month of the year in seclusion.
"Leave him to me, Hildegarde," said her cousin, Colonel Mostyn. "I will pilot him safely through the rocks and deep waters; nothing makes a man as self-reliant as feeling that he is trusted entirely."
And knowing that Colonel Mostyn was an elderly man, who knew about as much as there was to know of life in all its phases, Lady Hildegarde had no scruples.