At any rate, there was no time to be lost.
This boy Noll was come within two lives of the Cavil property—there was only one between his mother and the peerage.
He thought it would be a mistake to say anything to Caroline about it. She might go into opposition.
He would make the journey to Cavil and see the old lord at once. It would mean the eating of much pride; it would choke him; but——
Stay. An alienated relative makes but a treacherous ally. Yet——
Lord Wyntwarde strode up and down the great library at Cavil, where he transacted his business, and all such other like unpleasantnesses, amongst the books he never read, his hands in his breeches pockets; and he laughed harshly. He was just in from riding; and his pink hunting-coat, his breeches and long boots were splashed with mud.
Anthony, standing in a window, grimly watched him prowling.
The old lord threw back his head as he tramped the floor:
“Ho, ho!” he bawled, “friend Anthony! I spoke like the damned minor prophets, after all, hey!... So you come to me!... By the dogs, I said it. But you are three years before my prophecy.... You play the cat and banjo with my dates. You make me too previous.” He turned, clinking his spurs as he trod his heels into the thick carpets. “I saw the cub’s birth in the papers ... seventeen years and a while ago. But, the cast-iron joke of it! that you should come to prevent a marriage with an undesirable. Hoho—ho!... I swore it—I swore it should be so.... Gods! how the world goes round! Round and round and round. And no one grows a peppercorn the wiser.... Not a damn peppercorn. Tshah! I did it. But then I foresaw that all the Wattleses would pour their vast wealth into our coffers—they love to have a lord in the family down by Birmingham. Nevertheless, I married a vicar’s daughter against my father’s will—and she brought forth Ponsonby!... Gods! have you seen the Thing?”
Anthony said not a word.