Lord George Temple sate moodily in the armchair of his study in his little house in Mayfair chewing the end of a cigar and looking disconsolately at a tray of whiskey and water and a plate of oval thin Captain's biscuits on the table. He was a red-haired smooth-faced man with rather a long upper lip, and a good-natured, somewhat whimsical expression.
"It is a confounded shame!" he said to his wife, who, with an opera cloak slipping from her pretty bare shoulders, was resting for a moment before going upstairs to bed. "Graham gives his cook twenty-five pounds a year--I heard her telling you so one day when she was wanting a new one--and yet there wasn't a thing fit to eat on the table----"
"Well, I don't know," put in Lady George, absently; "I think those stuffed larks came from Mirobolants. I saw that style of decoration in his place the other day, and I'm quite sure the iced soufflé was Bombardi's; I know the shape."
"Exactly what I said!" continued the husband, "not a thing fit for a gouty man to eat at the table, and yet a woman on twenty-five pounds ought to be up to roast chicken and a rice pudding."
Blanche Temple looked at her spouse with the compassionate air of tolerance which she invariably extended to his views.
"But you can't give your friends roast chicken and rice pudding; you can't, indeed, nowadays. People wouldn't come."
"My dear girl," interrupted Lord George, obstinately, "there were four men at the table who, like myself, partook of soup, fish, and cheese straws. And one poor beggar didn't even have the soup." The thought was apparently comforting, for he began more contentedly on a biscuit. But his wife was now interested in the subject. Most things interested her, either to affirmation or denial, for Paul Macleod's sister was a very clever woman, if at the same time curiously conventional.
"Well! I don't know who eats the things, then," she said, aggrievedly. "Why, the last time we had a dinner-party--I mean when the Woodwards were here--I'm sure Paul ought to be infinitely obliged to me for the trouble I take--the cook who came in used pounds on pounds of stock meat, and quarts on quarts of cream; to say nothing of a whole bottle of whiskey. 'You had better give it her, my lady,' said Jane, 'for fear as the dinner might 'ave no appearance.'"
Among other unknown and despised talents which did not suit Lady George's theory of her own rôle in life was a distinct turn for mimicry. Her admirable impersonation of Jane, therefore, made her husband burst out laughing; since by a whimsical perversion of affairs he loved his wife dearly for the very qualities which she feigned not to possess. For Blanche was essentially a theatrical woman, loving to pose in all the relations of life, her present one being that of a dutiful sister. On Paul's return from India she had not only hastened to impress on him the absolute necessity for his marrying an heiress if he wished to keep Gleneira in the family, but had also introduced him to Alice Woodward, as a girl who would suit the part admirably. For Lady George knew her brother's foibles thoroughly, and understood that if he married for money, the bride must be a person who would neither offend his refinement, nor require much display of affection; since Paul would certainly never give himself away by pretending a depth of sentiment he did not feel, and yet would not marry without something of the sort. That she felt was the worst of him. Au fond he was absolutely truthful to himself.
"Of course you could sell if you liked," she had said to him skilfully, well knowing that the very thought was utterly repugnant; "trade is always ready to buy a Highland property. The only alternative is to marry a girl with money. I know one, pretty, lady-like, refined; a girl of whom you would be very fond if she were your wife. Her father is a speculator. Not quite so safe, of course, as a solid business--buttons or tallow--though, by the way, he has something to do with soap. Still, these Woodwards are quite presentable, and Monsieur le père has his wits about him. And then you know there are always settlements, and deeds of gift, and those sort of things which creditors make such a fuss about."