Featherstone gripped his son’s hand.
“Very well, my boy. You can rely upon me. But I do hope he won’t swear—much.”
Jim’s sensations at receiving the invitation were indescribable. Claude’s people were the cream of English aristocracy. At first he decided he wouldn’t go, but second thoughts brought him to realize that Claude must have arranged this, and his regard for Claude was very deep. He hunted out the discarded dress-suit and tried it on again. Certainly he felt more at home in it than of yore. The collar caused him less torture, and he managed to keep the “breastplate” of the shirt from buckling, which it seemed to delight in doing. He had lost some of his facial sun-brown, and this lent him a more refined appearance.
“I’ll go,” he muttered, “if it kills me.”
When the great day arrived he felt as though 57 some invisible being were pouring quarts of ice-water down his spine. He had already made himself acquainted with “Enquire Within,” and found that Claude’s mother should be addressed as “Lady Featherstone”; but the question of Angela caused him anxious moments. He thought “Honorable Miss” sounded a little too Japanese. He tackled Claude on this delicate problem.
“Oh, call her anything,” said that worthy. “What do you say to ’Angy’?”
Jim didn’t feel like jesting on so serious a subject. He decided that in Angela’s case he would drop the ceremonial form, and call her Miss Featherstone.
The memory of that evening is destined to live as long as the body of James Conlan inhabits this mortal coil. When he gave the servant his hat and stick and the footman his card, and heard that powdered monstrosity bawl “Mr. James Conlan” to a room filled with shimmering gowns and glistening shirt-fronts, Jim’s flesh went cold. But the vigilant Claude helped him through. Claude was like a streak of greased lightning, bouncing Jim here and there to be introduced to 58 a hundred and one people, leaving our hero a nervous wreck.
Featherstone and his wife acted in the most courteous fashion, her Ladyship having been coerced into accepting the inevitable with as good a grace as possible. Featherstone himself was instantly impressed by this muscular giant, who looked like an enlarged statue of Phœbus Apollo. He adjusted his monocle to get a fuller view.
“Claude has spoken a good deal about you, Mr. Conlan,” he drawled. “It is a pleasure to meet you here.”