"I know nothing," said Lord Saltire, "more pleasing to a battered old fellow like myself than to contemplate the ingenuousness of youth, and you must allow me to say that your ingenuousness sits uncommonly well upon you—in fact, is very becoming. I conceived a considerable interest in you the first time I saw you, on that very account. I should like to have had a son like you, but it was not to be. I had a son, who was all that could be desired by the most fastidious person, brought up in a far better school than mine; but he got shot in his first duel, at one-and-twenty. I remember to have been considerably annoyed at the time," continued the old gentleman, taking a pinch of snuff, and looking steadily at Charles without moving a muscle, "but I dare say it was all for the best; he might have run in debt, or married a woman with red hair, or fifty things. Well, I wish you good day, and beg your forgiveness once more for the liberty I have taken."
Charles slipped away from the dinner-table early that evening, and, while Lady Ascot was having her after-dinner nap, had a long conversation with Adelaide in the dark, which was very pleasant to one of the parties concerned, at any rate.
"Adelaide, I am going home to-morrow."
"Are you really? Are you going so suddenly?"
"I am, positively. I got a letter from home to-day. Are you very sorry or very glad?"
"I am very sorry, Charles. You are the only friend I have in the world to whom I can speak as I like. Make me a promise."
"Well?"
"This is the last night we shall be together. Promise that you won't be rude and sarcastic as you are sometimes—almost always, now, to poor me—but talk kindly, as we used to do."
"Very well," said Charles. "And you promise you won't be taking such a black view of the state of affairs as you do in general. Do you remember the conversation we had the day the colt was tried?"