"If Mr. Paul is still obstinate, you think there will be no further occasion to keep Miss Annette in seclusion?" asked Mrs. Stothard.
"Miss Annette will be nothing to me, then," said Mrs. Derinzy, "except that if she marries anyone else without Captain Derinzy's consent, she loses all her fortune; and I will take care that that consent is not very easily given."
"That is a new element in the affair," said Mrs. Stothard to herself, as she walked back to her room; "but not one which is likely to prove an impediment to my friend the philosopher here."
[CHAPTER XXI.]
FATHER AND SON.
Notwithstanding there was a most excellent understanding between George Wainwright and his father, and as much affection as usually subsists between men similarly related, they saw very little of each other, although inhabiting, as it were, the same house. They had scarcely any tastes or pursuits in common. When not engaged in actual practice, in study, or communicating the result of that study to the world, Dr. Wainwright liked to enjoy his life, and did enjoy it in a perfectly reputable manner, but very thoroughly. He read the last new novel, and went to the last new play of which people in society were talking; he dined, out with tolerable frequency; and took care never to miss putting in an appearance at certain salons, where the announcement of his name was heard with satisfaction, and at which the announcement of his presence in the next morning's newspaper was calculated to do him service.
The Doctor had the highest respect and a very deep regard for his son, whose acquirements he did not undervalue, but with whose tastes he could not sympathise; so it was that they comparatively very seldom met; and though on the occasions of their meeting there was always great cordiality on both sides, the relations between them were more those of friends than of kinsmen, more especially such nearly allied kinsmen as parent and child.
On the second evening after his return from Beachborough, George Wainwright dined at his club, and instead of going home as was almost his invariable custom, turned up St. James's Street with the intention of proceeding to his father's rooms in the Albany.
It was a dull muggy November night, and George shuddered as he made his way through the streets and walked into the hospitable arcade, at the door of which the gold-laced porter stood in astonishment at the unfamiliar apparition of Dr. Wainwright's son.
"The Doctor's in, and alone, sir, I think," said he, in reply to George's inquiry. "The same rooms, however--3 in Z; he has not moved since you were last here."