“Say,” he exclaimed, “do I ever look that way? I must do better than that. Anyhow, it ain't all put on. I'm doing my stunt, of course, but I like them. They're mighty nice to me when you consider what they're up against. And those two with the dimples,—Lady Gwynned and Lady Honora, are just peaches. Any fellow might”—he stopped and looked serious again—“That's why they'd count,” he added.
They were having one of their odd long talks under a particularly splendid copper beech which provided the sheltered out-of-door corner his grace liked best. When they took their seats together in this retreat, it was mysteriously understood that they were settling themselves down to enjoyment of their own, and must not be disturbed.
“When I am comfortable and entertained,” Moffat, the house steward, had quoted his master as saying, “you may mention it if the castle is in flames; but do not annoy me with excitement and flurry. Ring the bell in the courtyard, and call up the servants to pass buckets; but until the lawn catches fire, I must insist on being left alone.”
“What dear papa talks to him about, and what he talks about to dear papa,” Lady Celia had more than once murmured in her gently remote, high-nosed way, “I cannot possibly imagine. Sometimes when I have passed them on my way to the croquet lawn I have really seen them both look as absorbed as people in a play. Of course it is very good for papa. It has had quite a marked effect on his digestion. But isn't it odd!”
“I wish,” Lady Edith remarked almost wistfully, “that I could get on better with him myself conversationally. But I don't know what to talk about, and it makes me nervous.”
Their father, on the contrary, found in him unique resources, and this afternoon it occurred to him that he had never so far heard him express himself freely on the subject of Palliser. If led to do so, he would probably reveal that he had views of Captain Palliser of which he might not have been suspected, and the manner in which they would unfold themselves would more than probably be illuminating. The duke was, in fact, serenely sure that he required neither warning nor advice, and he had no intention of offering either. He wanted to hear the views.
“Do you know,” he said as he stirred his tea, “I've been thinking about Palliser, and it has occurred to me more than once that I should like to hear just how he strikes you?”
“What I got on to first was how I struck him,” answered Tembarom, with a reasonable air. “That was dead easy.”
There was no hint of any vaunt of superior shrewdness. His was merely the level-toned manner of an observer of facts in detail.
“He has given you an opportunity of seeing a good deal of him,” the duke added. “What do you gather from him—unless he has made up his mind that you shall not gather anything at all?”