“I am afraid you are right,” she agreed seriously. “There is an instability of purpose that must continually distress you.”
He stared at her incredulously, but before he could speak Dassett had ushered Lord Bromford into the room. He at once went forward to shake hands, greeting this new guest with more amiability than was usual, but saying, “I fear you are out of luck; my cousin has gone out driving.”
“I was informed of it at the door — How do you do, ma’am? — but I considered it proper to step upstairs to felicitate you upon your sister’s happy recovery,” replied his lordship. “I have had occasion to call in our good Baillie — excellent man — and he swore upon his honor there was not the least lingering danger of infection.”
Judging from the curl of Mr. Rivenhall’s lip that he was about to make a sardonic rejoinder, Miss Wraxton intervened rather hastily. “Have you been indisposed, dear Lord Bromford? This is sad hearing! No serious disorder, I must hope?”
“Baillie does not consider it so. He thinks the season has been uncommonly sickly, such inclement weather, you know, and very likely to produce affections of the throat, to which I am peculiarly susceptible. My mother has been, you may imagine, quite in a worry, for my constitution is delicate — It would be idle to deny that it is delicate! I was obliged to keep my room above a week”
Mr. Rivenhall, leaning his broad shoulders against the mantelpiece, drove his hands into the pockets of his breeches and presented all the appearance of a man willing to be amused. Lord Bromford did not recognize the signs, but Miss Wraxton did and was cast into an agony of apprehension. She once more hurried into speech. “Sore throats have been very prevalent, I believe. I do not wonder Lady Bromford was anxious. You were well nursed, I know!”
“Yes,” he concurred. “Not that my complaint was of such a nature as to — In short, even Mama owns herself to have been moved by the devotion of Miss Stanton-Lacy to her little cousin!” He moved to Mr. Rivenhall, who graciously inclined his head in acknowledgment of the courtesy, only spoiling the effect by a peculiarly saturnine grin. “I have been put in mind of certain lines from Marmion, in this connection.”
Miss Wraxton, who had heard enough of Sophy’s perfections in a sickroom, could only be grateful to Mr. Rivenhall for interpolating, “Yes, we know them well!”
Lord Bromford, who had started to repeat “O woman, in our hours of ease!” was thrown a little out of his stride by this, but recovered directly, and pronounced, “Any doubts that might have been nourished of the true womanliness of Miss Stanton-Lacy’s character, must, I venture to say, have been lulled to rest.”
At this moment, Dassett reappeared to announce that Lady Brinklow’s carriage was at the door. Miss Wraxton, who had only been set down in Berkeley Square while her parent executed a commission in Bond Street, was obliged to take her leave. Lord Bromford said that since neither Lady Ombersley nor her niece was at home he would not trespass longer upon the premises, and within a very few minutes Mr. Rivenhall was able to have his laugh out in comfort. Lord Bromford, who was a favorite with Lady Brinklow, was offered a seat in the landaulet, and beguiled the short drive to Brook Street with an exact account of the symptoms of his late indisposition.