CHAPTER XLIV
There was to be no great party at Hainault; Lord Roehampton particularly wished that there should be no fine folks asked, and especially no ambassadors. All that he wanted was to enjoy the fresh air, and to ramble in the forest, of which he had heard so much, with the young ladies.
“And, by the by, Miss Ferrars,” said Mr. Neuchatel, “we must let what we were talking about the other day drop. Adriana has been with me quite excited about something Lady Montfort said to her. I soothed her and assured her she should do exactly as she liked, and that neither I nor her mother had any other wishes on such a subject than her own. The fact is, I answered Lady Montfort originally only half in earnest. If the thing might have happened, I should have been content—but it really never rested on my mind, because such matters must always originate with my daughter. Unless they come from her, with me they are mere fancies. But now I want you to help me in another matter, if not more grave, more businesslike. My lord must be amused, although it is a family party. He likes his rubber; that we can manage. But there must be two or three persons that he is not accustomed to meet, and yet who will interest him. Now, do you know, Miss Ferrars, whom I think of asking?”
“Not I, my dear sir.”
“What do you think of the colonel?” said Mr. Neuchatel, looking in her face with a rather laughing eye.
“Well, he is very agreeable,” said Myra, “and many would think interesting, and if Lord Roehampton does not know him, I think he would do very well.”
“Well, but Lord Roehampton knows all about him,” said Mr. Neuchatel.
“Well, that is an advantage,” said Myra.
“I do not know,” said Mr. Neuchatel. “Life is a very curious thing, eh, Miss Ferrars? One cannot ask one person to meet another even in one’s own home, without going through a sum of moral arithmetic.”