'Message for you, sir,' the porter said, touching his hat to Dick; and in great doubt and trepidation, for to him a telegram was a most rare event, Dick took it and opened it.
His face flushed crimson as he read the contents; but he saw in a second the only way out of it was to put the best face on things.
'Why, my father's coming up, too!' he said, turning round to Gillingham. 'He'll arrive tomorrow. I—I must go this moment and hunt up some rooms for him. My sister doesn't say by what train he's coming; but he evidently means to stay, from what she tells me.'
'One good turn deserves another,' Gillingham drawled out carelessly. 'I don't mind going round with you and having another hunt. I should think that second set we saw round the corner would just about suit him.'
The second set had been rated at seven guineas a week. Dick was weak enough to colour again.
'Oh no,' he answered hurriedly. 'I—I'd prefer to go alone. Of course, I shall want some much cheaper place than that. I think I can get the kind of thing I require in Grove Street.'
'As you will,' Gillingham answered lightly, nodding a brisk farewell, and turning back into quad. 'Far be it from me to inflict my company unwillingly on any gentleman anywhere. I'm all for Auberon Herbert and pure individualism. I say you, Faussett, here's a game;' and he walked mysteriously round the corner by the Warden's Lodgings. He dropped his voice to a whisper: 'The Head of the Plantagenets is coming up tomorrow to visit the Prince of the Blood—fact! I give you my word for it. So we'll have an opportunity at last of finding out who the dickens the fellow is, and where on earth he inherited the proud name of Plantagenet from.'
'There were some Plantagenets at Leeds—no; I think it was Sheffield,' Faussett put in, trying to remember. 'Somebody was saying to me the other day this man might be related to them. The family's extinct, and left a lot of money.'
'Then they can't have anything to do with our Prince of the Blood,' Gillingham answered carelessly; 'for he isn't a bit extinct, but alive and kicking: and he hasn't got a crooked sixpence in the world to bless himself with. He lives on cold tea and Huntley and Palmer's biscuits. But he's not a bad sort, either, when you come to know him; but you've got to know him first, as the poet observes: and he's really a fearful swell at the history of the Plantagenets.'
Dick passed a troubled night. Terrible possibilities loomed vague before him. Next day he was down at the first two trains by which he thought it at all possible his father might arrive; and his vigilance was rewarded by finding Mr. Plantagenet delivered by the second. The Head of the House was considerably surprised, and not a little disappointed, when he saw his son and heir awaiting him on the platform.