“My dear ma’am, there is nothing in the least derogatory in being a Justice of the Peace!” he replied, at his blandest.
Mrs. Cheviot sought in vain for words adequate to the occasion, and could only regard him in speechless dudgeon.
Chapter XIII
The next day, the eve of the funeral, passed in much the same busy but uneventful style. The piles of rubbish grew higher yet. Miss Beccles was made happy by being permitted to make the stillroom and the linen cupboard her particular concerns. Elinor began to think that in time the house might be made very tolerable. And Nicky beguiled the morning by taking Bouncer to a neighboring farm and engaging in a rat hunt which might have been more successful had not Bouncer jumped to an overhasty conclusion that his first duty was to rid the world of the flea-ridden terrier who should have assisted him in his work of destroying all the rats in the big barn.
Returning from the day’s sport midway through the afternoon, Nicky strolled up to the house by the short cut that led through the surrounding woodland in time to see an elegant post-chaise-and-four drawn up before the front door. As he paused, in surprise, a very obvious gentleman’s gentleman jumped down from it, a dressing case in his hand, which he tenderly set down on the porch before turning back to assist his master to alight.
A slim and exquisite figure descended languidly onto the drive and stood with the utmost patience while I the valet straightened the numerous capes of his greatcoat and anxiously passed a handkerchief over the gleaming surface of a pair of well-cut Hessian boots. A high-crowned gray beaver with a curling brim was set at a slightly rakish angle on the gentleman’s head of glossy chestnut curls. He wore one gray glove and carried the other in the same hand, together with an ebony walking cane. From under the brim of his hat a pair of weary, blue eyes gazed in insufferable boredom at nothing in particular. Their expression of worldly cynicism made them sit oddly in a face decidedly round, and a nose inclined to the retroussé, and an almost womanishly delicate mouth and chin.
“Hell and the devil confound it!” uttered Nicky under his breath, recognizing the visitor.
Bouncer, who had been standing with his tail up and his ears on the prick, needed no more encouragement than these muttered words to send him forward like a bolt from the blue to execute his clear duty. Barking like a fiend, he launched himself upon the intruder.
The exquisite gentleman whirled about at the first bark, and as Bouncer came at full tilt across the ill-kept lawn, his ungloved right hand grasped the ivory top of his cane, deftly twisted it and drew a thin, wicked blade hissing from the ebony stick that formed its sheath.
“ Heel, Bouncer!” Nicky roared, terror for his pet lending such ferocity to his voice that Bouncer checked in mid-career, dropping tail and ears, and cowering to the earth in startled dismay.