“Well”—replied the other, hesitatingly—“it’s rather hard to say. He got sent down from Cambridge for something or other, and his governor got the needle over it, and put him on an allowance of a pound a week, or something like that, and so what could he do? It’s jolly hard on a young fellow round town to have less money than anybody else. He’s bound to get talked about, if he only owes half-a-crown to some outsider or other, and that makes other fellows turn shirty. But I think he always pays when he can.”
“You like him, then, do you?”
“Oh, yes—I like Tom well enough,” answered Augustine, dubiously pondering the significance of the interrogatory. “He’d be all right if—if he had a proper chance.” With a sigh, he ventured to add: “He’s like the rest of us—that way.”
At sight of Dicky Westland’s approach. Christian dropped his inquiries abruptly. “All right,” he said, with enigmatic brevity, and turned to his secretary with a meaning gesture. “I want to get away from here—out of the Castle,” he murmured to the newcomer, “without a minute’s delay. I have a—kind of appointment, and I am already late. If you will get our hats, we will walk out together, as if we were discussing some private matter, and then no one will interrupt us.”
This confidence was only partially justified by events. The two made their way unmolested into the open air, and across some long stretches of lawn to the beginning of the series of gardens. It was within Christian’s memory that one reached the orchards and the opening upon the heath by traversing these gardens. But in the second of them, where remarkable masses of tulips in gorgeous effulgence of bloom occupied the very beds in which he believed the dahlias must have been last year, there was some one on the well-remembered path in front of him.
A little child of two or three years, still walking insecurely at least, was being led along the edge of the flower-border by a woman in black whose back was turned.
The infant had caught the notion of bending over the hyacinths, one by one, laboriously to smell their perfume, and the woman indulgently lent herself to the pastime, halting and supporting the little one by the hand.
Christian wondered vaguely what child this could be, before observation told him that the person they were approaching was a lady. He took Dicky’s arm then, and quickened their step. “We will be very much engaged as we pass,” he admonished him. After a few paces, however, the futility of this device made itself apparent. The lady, glancing indifferently over her shoulder at the sound, of their tread, turned on the instant with a little cry of pleasure.
It was Cora who came toward them, now radiant of face and with an extended hand. She dragged the surprised child heedlessly along at her side with the other arm.
“Oh, Duke!” she cried. “I did so long to burst in upon you, wherever you were to be found, and thank you when I heard. It was Sir George Dence who told us. And Eddy, he’s quite off his head with joy! He wanted to look you up, too, but I told him to put off thanking you till to-morrow; between ourselves, I don’t fancy he’ll be seen quite to the best advantage later on to-day. But I know you’ll think none the worse of him for that; and there’s a good bit to be done, he says, in the way of pulling the Hunt together again to work like one man. He’s begun already promoting the right sort of feeling. He’s got Sir George and old General Fawcett and about a dozen more of ’em in the billiard-room, and I told him everything would be all right so long as they didn’t sing. On account of the funeral, you know. And—why, you’ve never seen my oldest unmarried daughter! Look up and say, ‘How-de-do?’ Chrissy. Why, she’s your namesake! Yes, her baptismal name is Christiana or Christina—which is it? We always call her Chrissy. And you haven’t told me what an effective family group I make. You never would have believed that I could be so domestic, now, would you?”