“What of Mr. Maubray? What have you heard of him? do tell us. How is poor Sir Richard? We never saw his son, you know, here; and is the quarrel made up?”
“That’s just what I was going to tell you about,” said Vane Trevor, scrambling rather clumsily on his legs again after his tumble. “Not the least chance—none in the world—of a reconciliation. And the poor old fellow, in one of his fits of passion, got a fit, by Jove, and old Sprague at Cambridge told me one half his body is perfectly dead, paralytic, you know, and he can’t last; so Winston, you see, is more eligible than ever.”
“Poor old man! you ought not to speak with so much levity,” said Mrs. Kincton Knox. “I did not hear a word of it—how horrible! And when had poor Sir Richard his paralytic stroke?”
“About a week ago. He knew some people yesterday; but they say he’s awfully shaken, and his face all—you know—pulled up on one side, and hanging down at the other; old Sprague says, a horrible object; by Jove, you can’t help pitying him, though he was a fearful old screw.”
“Melancholy!—and he was such a handsome man! Dear me! Is his son like him?” said Mrs. Kincton Knox ruefully.
“Why, not particularly just now. They say the two sides of his face are pretty much alike; and his right limbs are about as lively as his left;” and Vane Trevor cackled very agreeably over this sally.
“So I should hope, Mr. Trevor,” said the matron of the high nose and dark brows with a gloomy superiority, “and if there is any objection to answering my question, I should rather not hear it jested upon, especially with so shocking a reference to Sir Richard’s calamity—whom I knew, poor man! when he was as strong and as good looking as you are.”
“But seriously,” said Miss Clara, who saw that her mother had not left herself room to repeat her question, “what is he like? is he light or dark, or tall or short—or what?”
“Well, he’s dark at night, you know, when he’s put out his candle, and light enough in the daytime, when the sun’s shining, and he’s decidedly short sometimes—in his temper, I mean—he, he, he!—and tall in his talk always,” replied Vane Trevor, and he enjoyed a very exhilirating laugh at his witty conceits.
“You used to be capable of a little conversation,” said the matron grandly. “You seem to have abandoned yourself to—to⸺”