In the brightened light, Mr. Skinner’s demeanour seemed no more cordial. He regarded his visitor with a doubtful glance, and gave indications of a sense of embarrassment in his presence. The daughter, however, was in no respect dismayed by her responsibility.
“Papa,” she said with brisk decision, “it was all a joke yesterday. Our friend was so amused by your offer yesterday——”
“I beg your pardon, Adele,” the father interposed ceremoniously, “but it becomes immediately incumbent upon me to express my dissent. To obviate any possible misconception, it should be explicitly stated that, although it is true that the task of formulating the proposal to which you allude did undoubtedly devolve upon me, the proposition itself, both in spirit and suggestion, originated in your own consciousness.”
“All right,” she hurriedly went on, “have it anyway you like. The point is that this gentleman thought it was funny, and so he capped it with his own little joke by pretending to be some one else. He made up that name he gave you on the spur of the moment, just for sport. He came here this morning, just to explain. He was nervous about the deception, innocent though it was. Papa, let me introduce to you Mr. Linkhaw’s relation, of whom he spoke so often, you know—the Earl of Drumpipes.”
Mr. Skinner took in this intelligence with respectful deliberation. He bowed meanwhile, and, after a moment’s deferential hesitation, shook hands in a formal way with David, and motioned him to a seat.
“Sir,” he began, picking his phrases with even greater care, “you will excuse me if I do not address you as ‘My Lord,’ since it is a form of words which I cannot bring myself to regard as seemly when employed by one human being toward another; but I gather from my daughter’s explanation that your statements yesterday concerning your identity were conceived in a spirit of pleasantry. Under ordinary circumstances, sir, the revelation that an entirely serious and decorous suggestion of mine had been received with hilarity might not convey to my mind an exclusively flattering impression. But I do not, sir, close my eyes to the fact that a wide gulf of usage and custom, and, I might say, of principles, separates a simple Jeffersonian Democrat like myself from the professor of an hereditary European dignity. I am therefore able, sir, to accept, with comparatively few reservations, the explanation which you have tendered to my daughter, and vicariously, as I understand it, to me.”
David repressed a groan, and hastily cast about in his mind for a decent pretext for flight. “I assure you that it greatly relieves me to find you so courteously magnanimous,” he said. “I merely yielded to the playful impulse of the moment; and as your daughter has so kindly told you, I made haste thereafter to repair my error, when its possible misinterpretation occurred to me.” He bowed again, in response to the other’s solemn genuflection, and looked toward the door.
“I should be pleased, sir,” Mr. Skinner said, “if you would honour us by remaining to luncheon.”
“Ah, I should have liked that so much,” answered David, with fervour, “but unhappily I have an engagement at Marlborough House. It will be no end of a bore, but it can’t be helped. An invitation there, you know, is equivalent to a command. That is one of the drawbacks of a monarchy—but of course every system has its weak points.”
“That is a generalisation,” returned Mr. Skinner, “to which I am not prepared to give unmeasured adhesion. I will explain to you, sir, briefly, the reasons which dictate my hesitation to entirely——”