Marmaduke, dropping behind with Jack Jardine, gave a fierce sigh as he watched the little cavalcade move off amid this running fire of curses and kindliness.
"Is it all just as it used to be, Jack?" he asked helplessly.
The little man cleared his throat.
"A little worse perhaps. Your father is a very remarkable man, Marmaduke--a very remarkable man!"
[CHAPTER III]
Anyone who had seen Lord Drummuir ten minutes after Jack Jardine's remark must have echoed it, for a more complete volte face of manner, speech, and apparently temperament than that which overtook the baron in the dower house could not be imagined. Still in his bath-chair, which Marmaduke had dutifully pushed in through the French windows on to the green-grounded, cabbage-rosed drawing-room carpet, he beamed round on his daughters and their chaperon with a paternal affection which was almost pathetic. The Honourable Miss Muirs were three in number and they had all greeted their younger half-brother with reserved kisses. But then everything they did was reserved. Miss Mary, the eldest, was reserved even about her tendency to grow stout, which, all things considered, was the strongest interest in her life. Miss Elizabeth, the second, a very elegant looking woman, was equally reserved about her undoubted intellect, while Miss Margaret, a great tall, strapping figure with all her father's force of character and all his soundness of constitution, held both in check, except when she managed a lonely walk with her dogs in the woods. Then her voice would ring out deep and true, and at the crack of her whip every puppy within miles would come in contentedly to heel.
Her father liked her the least, probably because of the contrast between her and his ricketty male heir, so in the shabby Victorian drawing-room she generally sat mumchance, showing up badly against her sisters' exquisite manners. For no one knew better than Lord Drummuir what a gentlewoman should be, and therefore he had been extremely particular about his daughters' education. To what end, heaven alone knew, since they lived on, year after year, in the dower house, occasionally visiting in stately fashion the late minister's wife (though this distraction was no longer theirs owing to the State appointment of a bachelor to the living), and, very occasionally, seeing some of their father's older and more respectable friends. In regard to this, however, and to kindred matters no grand Turk could have been more autocratic than was Lord Drummuir. So he sat and discoursed on Shakespeare and the musical glasses, on his delight at seeing his dearest boy again, leading the latter on to detail some of the more instructive portions of his foreign life, until the full half-hour which he daily bestowed on his daughters was up. Then with the utmost punctuality he took out his watch, said he feared he must be off, and congratulated himself and the three young ladies on a charming conversation.
"You are too good, papa," replied the young ladies, as they deposited a decorous kiss on his bald head. So they stood and watched the bath-chair roll along the lawn till it reached the turn by the rhododendrons which hid it from view, and then they waved their handkerchiefs. And the baron waved his in return, thereinafter using it to mop his forehead relievedly, while he ejaculated, "Thank God, that's over!"
Whereat Marmaduke smiling, the old man went on serenely.
"Never forget, my boy, how to treat women of good character. The other comes naturally, but I'm damned if I ever forgot my manners with a really good woman. And you will find it pays, Duke, it pays. So now have not you got some bit of spice, or an on dit to amuse the old man with? Curse me, but I lead a miserable life here, tied down by this infernal complaint; but I am paying now for the follies and indiscretions of youth. Confound you, Marmaduke, you might think of your poor old father's joints and not rush your fences in that way!"