Mr. Romsey shook his head reminiscently. “Indeed, there are few young men today who can boast of my lord Duke’s advantages,” he said. “But I for one feel sure, sir, that he will prove himself worthy of your unremitting solicitude.”
The Duke thought of the period of his boyhood, spent largely at his house near Bath, so that he might derive the benefit of the waters there; of three trammelled years at Oxford; of two more trammelled years upon the Continent, with a military gentleman added to his entourage, to teach him horse-manage, and manly sports; and suddenly he made up his mind to assert himself, even if only in a small matter. He pushed back his chair, and said: “Shall we join my aunt now?”
“Really, Gilly, you must see that I have not yet finished my glass!” said Lord Lionel. “Do not, I beg of you, get into a scrambling way of doing things! You should always make sure that the company is ready to rise before you give the signal.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the Duke, abandoning the attempt to assert himself.
Chapter II
When the gentlemen at last joined the ladies, they found them established before the fire in the Crimson Saloon, one of a handsome suite of reception rooms on the first floor. Lady Lionel had sent for some working-candles, and her embroidery-frame, upon which latter Miss Scamblesby was engaged in setting stitches in various coloured silks. Her ladyship rarely occupied herself with anything more fatiguing than the knotting of a fringe, but by constantly desiring to have her embroidery brought to her, choosing the silks, and criticizing the design, she was easily able to persuade herself that she was an indefatigable worker, and would receive compliments upon her skill with perfect complaisance.
Mr. Romsey went over to Miss Scamblesby’s side, to observe what progress she had made; and while Lady Lionel informed him for perhaps the tenth time that the work was destined to form an altar-cloth for the Chapel, her husband gave Gilly the letter from his younger uncle, and waited expectantly for it to be handed over to him when Gilly had finished his perusal of it.
Gilly read it in some little surprise. Lord Henry, who was of a saving turn of mind, had managed to avoid the cost of an enclosure by compressing the intelligence he wished to convey on a single, crossed sheet. He wrote to inform his nephew of a very desirable connection he was about to form, through the betrothal of his eldest daughter to a scion of a distinguished family. He contrived to squeeze a number of details into his single sheet, and ended by expressing the hope that the proposed alliance would meet with his nephew’s approval.
The Duke gave up this letter to Lord Lionel in a mechanical way, and his lordship, casting his eye over it, said: “Ha! I suspected as much! Yelverton’s son, eh? Pretty well for a chit not out of the schoolroom!”
“I cannot conceive why he should write to tell me of it,” remarked the Duke.