Lady Adela was kind to him this morning in a sort of motherly way and apparently seized on his going to church as an omen of his future married happiness.
"They're all waiting to hear," he said to himself.
They were to walk across the park to the little village church, and when they set out he was conscious that Lord John, like a large and amiable bird, was hovering about him: finally, Lord John, nervous apparently, most certainly embarrassed, settled upon him.
"Going to church, aren't you, Roddy?"
"Yes, Beaminster."
"Well, let's strike off together, shall we?"
Roddy liked Lord John best of the Beaminster brothers; the Duke he could not endure and Lord Richard was so superior, but Johnny Beaminster was as amiable as an Easter egg and fond of race meetings and pretty women, and not too dam' clever—in fact, really, not clever at all.
But Johnny Beaminster embarrassed was another matter and Roddy found soon that this embarrassment led to his own confusion.
Lord John flung out little remarks and little whistles because of the heat and little comments upon the crops. He obviously had something that he very much wanted to say—"Of course," thought Roddy, "this is something to do with Rachel—he's very fond of Rachel."
Although Johnny Beaminster had not, in strict accuracy, himself the reputation of the whitest of Puritans, yet Roddy wondered whether perhaps he were not now worrying over some of Roddy's past history, as rumoured in London society.