“I will do so,” said Aubrey, recovering from his alarm. “I cry you mercy for my short greeting, but truly I was afraid, not knowing if you had ill news for me.”
“That I have not at this time, God be thanked! Yet if I may, I would fain ask you, Mr Louvaine, whether some time hath not run since you saw your friends in King Street?”
“Oh no! not very long—at least not more than common—only about—” Aubrey hesitated and flushed, as he realised that it was now the middle of October, and his last visit had been paid early in June. “You see, Sir, I am close tied by my duties here,” he added in haste.
“So close tied that you may not even be away for an hour? Well, you know your own duty; do it, and all shall be well. But I would beseech you not to neglect this call any longer than till your earliest opportunity shall give leave.”
Mr Marshall bowed, and with an official “May God bless you!” passed out of the hall door. Aubrey returned to his urgent duties in the billiard-room.
“Who is your visitor, Louvaine?” asked the youthful Earl.
“If it please your Lordship, ’tis but a messenger from my grandmother.”
“What would the ancient dame?” inquired one of the irreverent young gentlemen-in-waiting.
“She would have me go and wait on her: what else I know not. I shall find out, I reckon, when I go.”
“When saw you her Ladyship, Mr Louvaine?” said an unexpected voice behind him, and Aubrey turned to meet the Countess.