Her Ladyship announced casually that, yes, he might take the secretary and welcome if he returned her not too late at night; she had to be up early in the morning as she was starting on a holiday of a few days' duration. The dutiful nephew thanked his aunt, and requested her to let Miss Bush know that she would be wanted on Friday if she would be kind enough to come.
But Lady Garribardine was preoccupied with a subject much nearer her heart, and turned to it at once.
"I am dying to see Mordryn, G. I wish I had known he was going to speak to-day and I would have gone to the House; he felt it his duty, I suppose—this wretched Land Bill! How did he look? And did you get a word with him? I shall see him to-morrow, of course."
Mr. Strobridge gave the message that he had been asked to give, and vouchsafed the information that the Duke had appeared as usual and was altogether charming as ever.
"It is to be hoped he will get some good out of life now that he is free at last from those mad women."
Her Ladyship's face assumed a strange expression. She sat down in her usual armchair with an air of fatigue.
"Your words strike home, G.—for you know I made his marriage—in those far back ignorant days when no one thought of heredity or such things. I literally married him off to Laura almost against his will, because he was utterly devoted to me and I to him, and the situation was becoming impossible, over ten years between our ages, his immense position and mine—and Garribardine jealous—There was nothing else for it. Laura was a sweet, foolish creature then, beautiful and of no account. I felt she would never replace me in his affection, and in those days, nearly thirty years ago, it would have been considered almost indecent to talk of what future children might turn out—They were supposed to come from the cabbage beds and to have nothing to do with their parents!"
"Of course, one had always heard he was devoted to you, Seraphim—He is still."
"Dear Mordryn!—Laura gave him trouble on the honeymoon, and once made him look ridiculous—He never pardoned that. By the time she was shut up, I was fifty, G., and had mercifully a strong sense of humour, so Mordryn and I had no lapses and have remained firm friends as you know."
"One has often wondered what his inner life could have been during all those years of horror at home. He was a model of circumspection outwardly, but the adoration of women must have affected him now and then."