"Don't speak to me," said he, though Mr. Dashwood had not said a word. "Did you ever see me trying to keep my face? Sure, man, she's the governess, and I thought it was an old lady in spectacles that would be coming. Faith, and I'll have to get a chaperon. You might have blown me away with a fan when she said who she was. But I didn't let on, did I? I didn't show the start she's given me? Are you sure?"
Assured on this point, Mr. French poured himself out another glass of whisky. He explained that he'd got Miss Grimshaw "out of an advertisement." Then, much to the edification of Mr. Dashwood, he went into the bailiff business, the beauty of Nip and Tuck, the price Colonel Sherbourne had paid, explaining that it was not the money he cared about so much as the injury it would have done him in Sherbourne's estimation if the horses had not been delivered.
It was an adventure after the heart of Bobby Dashwood, who, in his short life, had dealt freely and been dealt with by money-lenders. Mr. Dashwood was what women call a "nice-looking boy," but he was not particularly intellectual when you got him off the subjects he had made particularly his own. He had failed for Sandhurst. If a proficiency in cricket and fives had been allowed to count, he would have got high marks; but they wanted mathematics, and Mr. Dashwood could not supply this requirement; in French, too, he was singularly deficient. The deficiencies of Mr. Dashwood would have furnished out half a dozen young men well equipped for failure in business, and that is why, I suppose, he managed to make such a success of life.
The joy Mr. Dashwood managed to extract from that usually unjoyful thing called life hinted at alchemy rather than chemistry. Joy, too, without any by-products in the way of headaches or heartaches. Utterly irresponsible, but without a serious vice, always bright, clean, and healthy, and alert for any sort of sport as a terrier, he was as good to meet and have around one as a spring morning—that is to say, when one was in tune for him.
He had five hundred a year of his own, with prospects of great wealth on the death of an uncle, and even out of this poverty he managed to extract pleasure of a sort in the excitement of settling with creditors and trying to make both ends meet—which they never did.
"What a joke!" said Mr. Dashwood. "And she never split. She said she'd been leaving a gentleman at an old castle—and she never grumbled, though she was nearly dropping off the car. I say, isn't she a ripper?"
"Here's to her," said French. "And now, come out and have a look at the stables and grounds. Lunch is at one, and we have an hour."
The youth and prettiness of Miss Grimshaw after the first pleasing shock did not trouble him in the least. A straight-minded man and a soul of honour in everything not appertaining to bill discounters, the propriety or impropriety of the situation did not cause him a moment's thought. The only thing that worried him for a second or two was the remembrance of Mr. Giveen. How would that gentleman act under the intoxication sure to be produced by the newcomer's youth and prettiness?
"She'd have been down herself to see you, miss," said Norah as she led the way upstairs, "only she's gone in the legs. This way, miss, along the passidge; this is the door."
A scuffling noise made itself evident as Norah turned the door-handle, and Miss Grimshaw, entering a brightly and pleasantly furnished room, found herself face to face with Miss French, who was sitting up on a sofa, flushed and bright-eyed and with the appearance of having suddenly returned to her invalidhood and position on the couch after an excursion about the apartment.