“Both yes and no to that question, Guy; I hardly know him yet.”
“True, but you must not expect to find him as indulgent and fond as many guardians would be to such as you. It’s not his nature. Yet you can win his heart by obedience, and soon grow quite at ease with him.”
“Bless you! I’m that already, for I fear no one. Why, I sat on his knee yesterday and smoked a cigarette of his own offering, though madame would have fainted if she had seen me; then I slept on his arm an hour, and he was fatherly kind, though I teased him like a gnat.”
“The deuce he was!” with which energetic expression Guy frowned at the landscape and harshly checked Sultan’s attempt to browse, while I wondered what was amiss between father and son, and resolved to discover; but, finding the conversation at an end, started it afresh, by asking,—
“Is any of my property in this part of the country, Guy? Do you know I am as ignorant as a baby about my own affairs; for, as long as every whim was gratified and my purse full, I left the rest to madame and uncle, though the first hadn’t a bit of judgment, and the last I scarcely knew. I never cared to ask questions before, but now I am intensely curious to know how matters stand.”
“All you see is yours, Sybil,” was the brief answer.
“What, that great house, the lovely gardens, these moors, and the forest stretching to the sea? I’m glad! I’m glad! But where, then, is your home, Guy?”
“Nowhere.”
At this I looked so amazed, that his gloom vanished in a laugh, as he explained, but briefly, as if this subject were no pleasanter than the first,—
“By your father’s will you were desired to take possession of the old place at eighteen. You will be that soon; therefore, as your guardian, my father has prepared things for you, and is to share your home until you marry.”