“Cheriton,” said she, “we are both of us old enough to know better. In the first place, you ought not to have brought that man to Hill Street; and in the second, I ought not to have allowed him to enter the house. However, the mischief is done. We must now take steps to repair it.”
“I shall be interested, my dear Caroline,” said Cheriton, in his most agreeable manner, “to learn what the steps are you propose to take.”
CHAPTER XXIX
JIM LASCELLES WRITES HIS NAME IN THE VISITORS’ BOOK
THE husband-elect felt a perfectly legitimate curiosity concerning the course to be adopted in this crisis by this eminently worldly wise, hard-headed, and matter-of-fact diplomatist.
“Do you assure me positively that the man is a gentleman?” said Caroline Crewkerne.
Cheriton ruminated. The term, as he understood it and as Caroline interpreted it, was of a somewhat baffling complexity.
“Ye-es,” said he, after an interval of unusually weighty reflection; “I should be inclined to say the young chap was by way of being one.”
“As that is your opinion,” said Caroline, grimly, “I shall speak a few words to him myself upon the subject.”
Cheriton gave this determination the benefit of an ample measure of his consideration.
“My dear Caroline,” said he, “it is either the worst thing you can do, or it is the best.”