“What if she proves to be the daughter of a tradesman?” said Mr. Beaumaris. “I do owe something to my name, you know. It might even be worse, and surely I am too old to be losing my head for a pretty face!”
Since his hand was still, Ulysses nudged him. Mr. Beaumaris resumed his steady pulling of that shameful ear, but said: “You are quite right: it is not her pretty face. Do you believe her to be entirely indifferent to me? Is she really afraid to confess the truth to me? She must not be—no, Ulysses, she must not be! Let us look on the darker side! Is she ambitious to acquire a title? If that is so, why, then, has she sent poor Charles to the rightabout? You believe her to be aiming higher? But she cannot suppose that Witney will come up to scratch! Nor do I think that your suspicions are correct, Ulysses.”
Ulysses, catching the note of severity in his voice, cocked an anxious eye at him. Mr. Beaumaris took his muzzle in his hand, and gently shook it. “What do you advise me to do?” he asked. “It appears to me that I have reached Point Non Plus. Should I—” He broke off, and rose suddenly to his feet, and took a turn about the room. “What a saphead I am!” he said. “Of course! Ulysses, your master is a fool!” Ulysses jumped up to place his forepaws against those elegant pantaloons, and uttered a protesting bark. All this walking about the room, when Mr. Beaumaris might have been better employed, was not at all to his taste. “Down!” commanded Mr. Beaumaris. “How many more times am I to request you not to sully the purity of my garments by scrabbling at them with your ignoble, and probably dirty, paws? Ulysses, I shall be leaving you for a space!”
Ulysses might find this a little beyond him, but he fully understood that his hour of bliss was at an end, and so lay down in an attitude of resignation. Mr. Beaumaris’s subsequent actions filled him with vague disquiet, for although he was unacquainted with the significance of portmanteaux, some instinct warned him that they boded no good to little dogs. But these inchoate fears were as nothing when compared to the astonishment, chagrin, and dismay suffered by that peerless gentleman’s gentleman, Mr. Painswick, when he apprehended that his employer proposed to leave town without the support and expert ministration of a valet whom every Tulip of Fashion had at one time or another attempted to suborn from his service. He had accepted with equanimity the information that his master was going out of town for perhaps as much as a week, and was already laying out, in his mind, the raiment suitable for a sojourn at Wigan Park, or Woburn Abbey, or Belvoir, or perhaps Cheveley, when the full horror of the event burst upon him. “Put up enough shirts and neckcloths to last me for seven days,” said Mr. Beaumaris. “I’ll travel in riding-dress, but you may as well pack the clothes I have on, in case I should need them. I shan’t take you with me.”
It took a full minute for the sense of this pronouncement to penetrate to the mind of his valet. He was shocked, and could only gaze at Mr. Beaumaris in stupefaction.
“Tell ’em to have my travelling-chaise, and the bays, at the door by six o’clock,” said Mr. Beaumaris. “Clayton can accompany me for the first couple of stages, and bring the horses home.”
Mr. Painswick found his voice. “Did I understand you to say, sir, that you would not be requiring Me?” he asked.
“You did,” responded Mr. Beaumaris.
“May I enquire, sir, who then is to wait upon you?” demanded Mr. Painswick, in a voice of ominous quiet.
“I am going to wait upon myself,” replied Mr. Beaumaris.