"If you know his friends, you had better send for them to take him home--he ought not to go alone."
The patient was by this time able to smile. Lying back on the pillow, he looked extraordinarily frail and refined, and his voice, urbane to a degree, matched his appearance.
"Friends!" he echoed. "I have none. I left friendship behind me--with other things--years ago."
"Then, if you know no one, you'd better stop here," suggested Peter Ramsay brusquely.
"I said nothing of knowledge, sir," replied the old man; "I know many, and every one knows me. I am Sylvanus Smith."
Dr. Ramsay glanced swiftly at Ted Cruttenden, as if to refresh a casual memory. "Sylvanus Smith," he echoed. "Oh yes! I remember. Then you live near Dinas, and have a beautiful granddaughter--and--and you know Cruttenden?"
Mr. Sylvanus Smith sat up, and flushed a delicate pink. "Excuse me; neither of those qualifications have any bearing on the question. I am President of the Social Congress, and I do happen to have a slight acquaintance with this gentleman. I have to thank you, sir. I saw you amongst my audience, and I presume----"
"Not at all--not at all," interrupted Ted. "If you like, Dr. Ramsay, I will see him home."
As he said the words, he knew that here was a stroke of luck. Without in any way infringing on his compact with Ned Blackborough, here was an opportunity of ingratiating himself with Aura's legal guardian. He would be a fool not to take it, a fool not to make the very most of it.
And yet when, a whole week afterwards, the old man, leaning out of the through carriage to Wales, in which Ted had placed him duly fortified with papers and egg sandwiches, shook him warmly by the hand, saying, "Then you will come to Cwmfairnog at Christmas." The words brought a distinct feeling of meanness to the hearer. Ned Blackborough would have to go alone to the inn. That was not what had been intended; but then the whole business was absurd. He had a great mind to back out of it altogether. And here the swift thought came, that from what he had seen of Mr. Sylvanus Smith, a lordling would have scantier grace than a commoner; so that it might be as well if Ned----