Ermine had one more visit from Lord Keith, and this time he came alone. He was in his most gracious and courteous mood, and sat talking of indifferent things for some time, of his aunt Lady Alison, and of Beauchamp in the old time, so that Ermine enjoyed the renewal of old associations and names belonging to a world unlike her present one. Then he came to Colin, his looks and his health, and his own desire to see him quit the army.
Ermine assented to his health being hardly fit for the army, and restrained the rising indignation as she recollected what a difference the best surgical advice might have made ten years ago.
And then, Lord Keith said, a man could hardly be expected to settle down without marrying. He wished earnestly to see his brother married, but, unfortunately, charges on his estate would prevent him from doing anything for him; and, in fact, he did not see any possibility of his—of his marrying, except a person with some means.
“I understand,” said Ermine, looking straight before her, and her colour mounting.
“I was sure that a person of your great good sense would do so,” said Lord Keith. “I assure you no one can be more sensible than myself of the extreme forbearance, discretion, and regard for my brother’s true welfare that has been shown here.”
Ermine bowed. He did not know that the vivid carmine that made her look so handsome was not caused by gratification at his praise, but by the struggle to brook it patiently.
“And now, knowing the influence over him that, most deservedly, you must always possess, I am induced to hope that, as his sincere friend, you will exert it in favour of the more prudent counsels.”
“I have no influence over his judgment,” said Ermine, a little proudly.
“I mean,” said Lord Keith, forced to much closer quarters, “you will excuse me for speaking thus openly—that in the state of the case, with so much depending on his making a satisfactory choice, I feel convinced, with every regret, that you will feel it to be for his true welfare—as indeed I infer that you have already endeavoured to show him—to make a new beginning, and to look on the past as past.”
There was something in the insinuating tone of this speech, increased as it was by the modulation of his Scottish voice, that irritated his hearer unspeakably, all the more because it was the very thing she had been doing.