“Bring it to the library, Brough—something off the wood!” said Mr. Beaumaris.
Lord Fleetwood, always the easiest of preys, rose to the bait without a moment’s hesitation. “Here, no, I say!” he cried, turning quite pale with horror. “Robert! No, really, Robert!”
Mr. Beaumaris lifted his brows in the blandest astonishment, but Brough, taking pity on his lordship, said in a soothing tone: “We have nothing like that in our cellars, I assure your lordship!”
Lord Fleetwood, perceiving that he had once more been gulled, said with strong feeling: “You deserve I should plant you a facer for that, Robert!”
“Well, if you think you can—!” said Mr. Beaumaris.
“I don’t,” replied his lordship frankly, accompanying him into the library. “But that lemonade was a dog’s trick to serve me, you know!” His brow puckered in an effort of thought. “Tallant! ... Did you ever hear the name before, for I’ll swear I never did?”
Mr. Beaumaris looked at him for a moment. Then his eyes fell to the snuff-box he had drawn from his pocket. He flicked open the box, and took a delicate pinch between finger and thumb. “You have never heard of the Tallant fortune?” he said. “My dear Charles—!”
V
Thanks to Mr. Beaumaris’s message, which worked so powerfully on the wheelwright as to cause him to ignore the prior claims of three other owners of damaged vehicles, Arabella was only kept waiting for one day in Grantham. Since the Quorn met there on the morning following her encounter with Mr. Beaumaris, she was able, from the window of a private parlour at the Angel and Royal Inn, to see just how he looked on horseback. She could have seen how Lord Fleetwood looked too, had she cared, but curiously enough she never even thought of his lordship. Mr. Beaumaris looked remarkably well, astride a beautiful thoroughbred, with long, sloping pasterns, and shoulders well laid back. She decided that Mr. Beaumaris’s seat was as good as any she had ever seen. The tops to his hunting-boots were certainly whiter than a mere provincial would have deemed possible.
The Hunt having moved off, there was nothing for two delayed travellers to do for the rest of the day but stroll about the town, eat their meals, and yawn over the only books to be found in the inn. But by the following morning the Squire’s carriage was brought round to the Angel, with a new pole affixed, and the horses well-rested, and the ladies were able to set forward betimes on the last half of their long journey.