Mr. Beaumaris’s cool gray eyes betrayed no emotion, but his mouth seemed for an instant to harden. He said calmly: “Certainly. There should be a fire in the saloon. Tell Mrs. Mersey to wait upon the ladies there.”
The butler bowed, and would have withdrawn, but Lord Fleetwood checked him, exclaiming: “No, no, too shabby by half, Robert! I won’t be fobbed off so! What do they look like, Brough? Old? Young? Pretty?”
The butler, inured to his lordship’s free and easy ways, replied with unimpaired solemnity that one of the ladies was both young, and—he ventured to think—very pretty.
“I insist on your receiving these females with a proper degree of civility, Robert!” said his lordship firmly. “Saloon, indeed! Show ’em in, Brough!”
The butler glanced for guidance towards his master, as though he doubted whether the command would be endorsed, but Mr. Beaumaris merely said with his usual indifference: “As you please, Charles.”
“What an ungrateful dog you are!” said Lord Fleetwood, when Brough had left the room. “You don’t deserve your fortune! This is the hand of Providence!”
“I should doubt of their being Paphians,” was all Mr. Beaumaris found to say. “I thought that was what you wanted?”
“Any diversion is better than none!” replied Lord Fleetwood.
“What a singularly infelicitous remark! I wonder why I invited you.”
Lord Fleetwood grinned at him. “Now, Robert, did you think— did you think—to come Tip Street over me? There may be plenty of toadies ready to jump out of their skins at the very thought of being invited to the Nonpareil’s house—and no better entertainment offered than a rubber of piquet, I dare swear—”