“You cannot forgive me, my lord?”
He indulged in more of his laughter, and abruptly summoning gravity, bade her talk to him of affairs. He himself talked of the condition of the Castle, and with a certain off-hand contempt of the ladies of the family, and Cecil’s father, Sir John. “What are they to me?” said he, and he complained of having been called Last Earl of Romfrey.
“The line ends undegenerate,” said Rosamund fervidly, though she knew not where she stood.
“Ends!” quoth the earl.
“I must see Stukely,” he added briskly, and stooped to her: “I beg you to drive me to my Club, countess.”
“Oh! sir.”
“Once a countess, always a countess!”
“But once an impostor, my lord?”
“Not always, we’ll hope.”
He enjoyed this little variation in the language of comedy; letting it drop, to say: “Be here to-morrow early. Don’t chase that family away from the house. Do as you will, but not a word of Nevil to me: he’s a bad mess in any man’s porringer; it’s time for me to claim exemption of him from mine.”