'You always do,' said Lord Fettercairn somewhat pointedly.
'Ah,' thought Shafto, 'the old fellow's liver is out of order, and gout threatening, of course—a bad look-out for me.'
On that morning he did not like the expression of Lord Fettercairn's face, so he resolved to defer speaking of his 'affairs' till a future time; but in a little space, as we shall show, the chance was gone for throwing himself, as he had thought to do, 'on the mercy' of either Lord or Lady Fettercairn.
The evening before he had been among a set of very different people—flashily dressed roughs returning from a local racecourse, their dirty hands over-bejewelled, with foul pipes and fouler language in their mouths, speeding hither and thither by train in search of pigeons to pluck, with their jargon of backing the favourite, making up books, and playing shilling Nap and Poker by the dim light of the carriage lamp, while imbibing strong waters from flasks of all sorts and sizes.
What a contrast they presented to his present refined surroundings, with Finella standing out among them, so pure, so patrician, and so exquisitely lady-like; and in attendance upon him, with hands that were white as alabaster—Finella, fresh and fragrant as a white moss rose, attired in a most 'fetching' morning costume to the feminine eye, suggestive of Regent Street.
Lord Fettercairn now addressed himself to the task of opening his letters, after the contents of the household postbag had been distributed round the table by that rubicund priest of Silenus, old Mr. Grapeston, the butler.
There were several blue envelopes for Shafto, which—with an unuttered malediction on his lips—he thrust unopened into the pocket of his tweed morning coat.
Among his letters Lord Fettercairn received one which seemed to startle him so much that, ignoring all the rest, he read it again and again, his sandy grey eyebrows becoming more and more knitted, and the colour going and coming in his now withered cheek, as Shafto, who was watching him very closely, could plainly see. He seemed certainly very perturbed, and tossed aside all his other letters, as if their contents could be of no consequence compared with those of this particular missive.
'Your letter seems to disturb you, grandfather,' said Shafto.
'It does—it does, indeed.'