“You don’t know me, Mr. Beaumont. I didn’t get the chance of an introduction before dinner. I took in Miss St. Clair—stunning creature, isn’t she?—and she told me all about you. If you aren’t dancing for a while let us slip off to my den and have a cigarette. I’m Lindsay, Lord Lindsay, you know.”
Then Beaumont knew he was speaking to the heir of the house.
“We must slip out quietly, or my mother ’ll collar us. Keep your eye on me, and hook it when we near the door. I’ll pilot you.”
The manœuver was executed.
“Take that chair; you can lose yourself in it. Try this smoke. Seltzer or soda. Mix your own liquor. Ain’t this a cozy little hole? This is my hermitage. What were you thinking of when I spoke to you? You looked miles away.”
“So I was. I was wondering, I think, whether I’d rather be a Lifeguardsman or a power-loom weaver, and contrasting that six feet two of quintessential boredom, Captain Bouverie, I think his name is, with a shuttle-thrower of my native valley.”
“Ah! yes. You’re Yorkshire, aren’t you? Any relation of Beaumont, of White Meadows? I met him once at Baden.”
“I can’t say I am and I can’t say I’m not. I’ve heard my mother say there’s some distant connection, but it is of the remotest. If we are of the same blood, it’s about run itself out by this time.”
“But you know Beaumont, of White Meadows. Plunges a lot at the tables, they say. Great friend of the Prince.”
“So I have heard. But I don’t know much about him. I’ve spoken once or twice on the same platform and probably shall again.”