'Merton. Yours?'
'Girton.'
The odd rhyme amused him. Thenceforth we were friends—'two 'Varsity men,' he said. And indeed it does make a queer sort of link—a freemasonry to which even women are now admitted.
At dinner and through the evening he talked a great deal to me, Lady Georgina putting in from time to time a characteristic growl about the table-d'hôte chicken—'a special breed, my dear, with eight drumsticks apiece'—or about the inadequate lighting of the heavy German salon. She was worse than ever: pungent as a rule, that evening she was grumpy. When we retired for the night, to my great surprise, she walked into my bedroom. She seated herself on my bed: I saw she had come to talk over Harold.
'He will be very rich, my dear, you know. A great catch in time. He will inherit all my brother's money.'
'Lord Kynaston's?'
'Bless the child, no. Kynaston's as poor as a church mouse with the tithes unpaid; he has three sons of his own, and not a blessed stiver to leave between them. How could he, poor dear idiot? Agricultural depression; a splendid pauper. He has only the estate, and that's in Essex; land going begging; worth nothing a year, encumbered up to the eyes, and loaded with first rent-charges, jointures, settlements. Money, indeed! poor Kynaston! It's my brother Marmaduke's I mean; lucky dog, he went in for speculation—began life as a guinea-pig, and rose with the rise of soap and cocoa. He's worth his half-million.'
'Oh, Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst'
Lady Georgina nodded. 'Marmy's a fool,' she said, briefly; 'but he knows which side of his bread is buttered.'
'And Mr. Tillington is—his nephew?'