“How do you do?” murmured Sir Richard, holding out his hand.
Mr Griffin clasped it. “I wonder I should not have recognized you. Mama, we have been quite mistaken. This is none other than the famous Sir Richard Wyndham—the friend of Brummell, you know! You must have heard me—you must have heard him spoken of. It is quite impossible that he can know anything of my cousin’s whereabouts.”
She seemed to accept this, though with obvious reluctance. She looked Sir Richard over with disfavour, and said paralysingly: “I have the greatest dislike of all forms of dandyism, and I have ever deplored the influence exerted by the Bow-Window set upon young men of respectable upbringing. However, if you are indeed Sir Richard Wyndham, I dare say you would not object to showing my son how to arrange his cravat in what he calls the Wyndham Fall, so that he need no longer spoil every neckcloth in his drawer before achieving a result which I consider lamentable.”
“Mama!” whispered the unhappy Mr Griffin. “I beg of you!”
The entrance of a servant, in answer to the bell’s summons, came as a timely interruption. Upon being asked to discover whether Sir Richard’s nephew were in the house, he was able to reply that the young gentleman had left the inn some time previously.
“Then I fear there is nothing for you to do but to await his return,” said Sir Richard, addressing himself to Mrs Griffin.
“We should not dream of—Mama, there can be no doubt that she—he—did not come here after all. Lady Luttrell disclaims all knowledge, remember, and she must certainly have known if my cousin had come into this neighbourhood.”
“If I could think that she had gone to cousin Jane, all would not yet be lost!” said Mrs Griffin. “Yet it is possible? I fear the worst!”
“This is all very perplexing,” complained Sir Richard. “I was under the impression that this mysterious truant was of the male sex.”
“Frederick, my nerves can stand no more!” said Mrs Griffin, surging to her feet. “If you mean to drag me the length of England again, I must insist upon being permitted the indulgence of half an hour’s solitude first!”