“I’m not going home, thanks,” said Noll—and he added, seeing surprise in the eyes of the other: “I’ve got to face old Lord Wyntwarde first—he’s a sort of relation of mine—and has been paying for my being at Oxford.... My own people are very badly off.... I don’t think I ought to let the unpleasantness of the interview fall upon my people. And I’m funking it....” And he added grimly, after a while: “I understand why men sometimes get drunk.”
Horace laughed:
“Oh,” said he—“it’ll blow over all right.... Look here, Noll; you’d better come to my people to-day, stay over the night, and go on to-morrow to the eating of dirt....”
So it came that Noll spent his first evening in the Malahide household. And the girls both vowed the next day to their separate bosom friends that they “had met their fate.” It leaked out during the confidences of each that Horace had discovered to them that the youth was kinsman to a certain Lord Wyntwarde....
The hot-headed old lord stood a-straddle before his fireplace, and smiled grimly.
How the blood of this house repeated itself!
Here was this young fellow pacing up and down the room as though he were laying down the terms of a surrender.
By the dogs, a handsome young fellow! Like his mother—with a trick or two of the father in him.
He himself had thus prowled this room in like disgrace with the lord of the house years ago. What a while ago!... This lad’s father also—now this one! By the book, wonderful!
The fact was that the old lord’s wilful admiration followed this proud lad with a sense of affection that was strange to him—the youth appealed to him more than did the more elaborate father. He had more of the beauty of the old house about him.