"My dear Paul! what a dreadful thing to say; please remember he is your god-son."
"Well, if he doesn't hear it from me he will from others, my dear girl," replied her brother, with a shrug of the shoulders. "It is the teaching of to-day. We are none of us responsible beings."
"And upon my soul," growled Lord George, "I'm inclined to agree with it in one sense--think of that fool of a nurse!--you should dismiss her, Blanche."
"But, my dear Paul," persisted Lady George, disregarding her husband's suggestion, "the question of heredity does not exclude the forces of education. We can be altered----"
"I've heard you say a dozen times, Blanche, that an altered body is never satisfactory, even with the best of dressmakers," interrupted Paul, as he turned off to the smoking-room. "So why should you think it would answer with a soul?"
"There is something the matter with Paul," remarked his sister, who disliked above all things to have the logical sequence of her own theories flung in her face; "but that is only to be expected. When one is busy troubles come crowding in on every side. However, I have written to Lady Hooker, and begged her as a personal favour not to bring the piper to-morrow night; for, though I have warned the servants about Highland flings, you cannot expect people to overcome their natural instincts nowadays, and of course we shall be enjoying ourselves, in a way, upstairs."
"I hope so," assented her husband, gloomily; "and I suppose, my dear, I shall get my towel-horse back when it is all over."
"Now, George! isn't that like a man?" cried his wife, triumphantly, as if appealing to him for verification of a new and interesting fact about himself. "As if you didn't know that tableaux in the drawing-room and towel-horses in the bedrooms were quite incompatible when scenery is required--especially rustic scenery. And Mrs. Vane requires so many rocks! You may be thankful it wasn't boulders, for then the pillows would have gone, and what would you have said to that?"
Lord George said nothing, but as he followed his brother-in-law's example and turned off to the smoking-room, some connection of ideas made him hum to himself:--
"Out of my stony grief Bethels I'll raise."