He ran his fingers through his smooth thick hair--a sure sign of mental perturbation with Tony--and he made the discovery that he was furiously angry; not with Lallie, the wilful and inconsequent, but with the unoffending Mr. Johns.
"Confound the fellow and his snapshots!" thought Tony; "if there's one kind of hobby more detestable than another it's that of the ardent amateur photographer. A man given up to it is almost as bad as the chap who wears cotton-wool in his ears, and is always taking medicine. There were these two" (with the second-sight vouchsafed to most of us upon occasion, Tony was perfectly correct in his surmise) "sitting side by side on the sofa with their heads close together, and that great heavy book spread out on their joint knees. Heavens! he would be proposing to snapshot Lallie next" (which is precisely what Mr. Johns was doing at that moment). "He, Tony, would not have it. He would interfere, he would--" Suddenly, exclaiming aloud, "What an ass I am!" he sat down at his desk with the firm determination to attend to his letters. He drew a neatly docketed bundle towards him, and selected the top one. It was that of Uridge Major's father, who wrote pointing out what a steadying effect it would have upon the boy were he made a prefect that term. Tony dealt diplomatically with this, but instead of going methodically through the bundle as he had fully intended to do he drew from his pocket a letter he had received from Fitzroy Clonmell last mail. It consisted of two closely written sheets; the first mainly descriptive of the sport they were enjoying, and duly concluded with the pious hope that his daughter was behaving herself. This was manifestly intended to be shown to Lallie. It was the second sheet that Tony read and re-read when he ought to have been allaying the misgivings of anxious-minded parents.
"By the way," it ran, "if one Sidney Bargrave Ballinger should happen to call upon Lallie while she is with you, be decent to him, will you? He fell hopelessly in love with her at Fareham last winter, and followed us to Ireland for fishing in the spring, when he proposed and she refused him. Consequently she is unlikely ever to have mentioned his name. The frankest and most garrulous creature about all that concerns herself, she is extraordinarily reticent as to things concerning other people, especially if she thinks it might be in any way unpleasant for them to have their affairs discussed. They parted quite good friends, and I take it as not unlikely that she might be brought to reconsider her decision. You will probably think him a bit of a crock--old son of Anak that you are! So he is in some ways, but he is also quite a good sort, refined, kind-hearted, and a gentleman; a Trinity man, with somewhat scholarly tastes. I am sure he would make her a good and indulgent husband. Besides, he has an uncommonly nice place in Garsetshire, and about eight thousand a year. He came into this money quite recently through the death of an uncle, and having now a 'stake in the country' he feels, I suppose, that he ought to be a bit of a sportsman, and he does his best to achieve that character, although I don't believe he has a single sporting instinct in him. He broke his collar-bone the second time he came out hunting last season; but he hunted again the minute it was mended, and rode as queerly as ever. He followed us to Kerry for fishing in April, and flogged the stream all day without getting a single rise; but he contrived to see something of Lallie, which was what he came for.
"Should he appear in Hamchester I'd like to know how he strikes you. I'm so horribly afraid she may want to marry some impecunious soldier chap imported by Paddy, who will carry her off to a vile climate where she would assuredly go under in a year or two, that it would be a real comfort to me to see her safely married to a good fellow who could give her all the pleasures she most cares for and has been accustomed to; and even if he isn't a sportsman himself would not be averse from her fond father occasionally sharing in the same--but this is a very secondary consideration. A son-in-law will be such an incubus that nothing he can bring in his hand will mitigate the nuisance much.
"Perhaps he won't turn up at all, but if he does, don't cold-shoulder him--he has my blessing. Give him his chance. She'll follow her own line of country in any long run, but there's no harm in giving her an occasional lead in the most desirable direction. I wish he hadn't been called Sidney, it's a name I detest; still, we can call him by his middle name if it ever reaches the necessity for a familiar appellation.
"Salve atque vale.
"From yours.
"Fitz."
Tony knit his brows and pondered. Had Mr. Sidney Bargrave Ballinger already arrived? he wondered. Was that why Lallie was so ardently desirous of going out with the hounds on Thursday? No; he acquitted her of any form of stratagem. If she had seen the man she would have mentioned it. She always made a bee-line for anything she wanted, and intrigue was as foreign to her nature as mischief-making.
He was worried and irritable; he couldn't settle to his letters; and he felt quite unaccountably annoyed with Fitz for thus shifting the burden of responsibility from his own shoulders to Tony's. And Tony, being of a just and charitable temperament, took himself seriously to task for having instantaneously and irrevocably taken a violent dislike to the unseen and unknown Sidney Bargrave Ballinger.