His master took the letter and read it. A strange, slow, remorseful look overspread the passion on his face.
“No ill news, I hope,” ventured Hobhouse.
Gordon made no reply. He crushed the letter into his pocket, turned abruptly and strode up St. James Street.
“His lordship’s mother died yesterday, Mr. Hobhouse,” said the valet in a low voice.
“Good God!” exclaimed the other. “What a contretemps.”
A knot of loungers were seated under the chandeliers in the bow-window of White’s Club as Gordon passed on his way to the coach. Beau Brummell, élégant, spendthrift, in white great-coat and blue satin cravat exhaling an odor of eau de jasmin, lifted a languid glass to his eye.
“I’ll go something handsome!” cried he; “I thought he was in Greece!”
“He’s the young whelp of a peer who made such a dust with that Satire he wrote,” Lord Petersham informed his neighbor. “Hero of the sack story I told you. Took the title from his great-uncle, the madman who killed old Chaworth in that tavern duel. House of Lords tried him for murder, you know. Used to train crickets and club them over the head with straws; all of them left the house in a body the day he died. Devilish queer story! Who’s the aged party with the portmanteaus? Valet?”
“Yes,” asserted some one. “The old man was here a while ago trying to find Gordon—with bad news. His lordship’s mother is dead.”