Just then a servant, so prehistorically dignified as to suggest the Stone Age, moved noiselessly from the door to Sir Robert’s elbow, where he stood like a statue, disdainful of employing the typical “cough-behind-the-hand” manner of disclosing his presence, until the shadow of his admirably nourished body falling athwart the sacred pages of the Times did this for him.
“What is it, Berkley?” Sir Robert asked, testily; he abhorred being disturbed at breakfast. “Has anything gone wrong?”
“No, Sir Robert—that is, yes, in a way, Sir Robert; there is a—er—gentleman to see you, Sir Robert, in the reception-room.”
“A gentleman to see me in the reception-room at eleven o’clock!” Sir Robert exclaimed. “Did he send up a card?”
“No, Sir Robert, leastways not that I know of. The chassewer down-stairs”—Berkley was no French scholar—“sent up the name only, by the page.”
“Well—confound it!—what is the name?”
“Mr. Preston Wynne,” Berkley stated.
“Young Wynne! God bless my soul! Why didn’t you say so at first? Show him up immediately, Berkley. Why, you’ve seen him fifty times at Seton Park. Show him up—of course if you don’t mind, my dear,” he concluded, addressing his wife, who nodded consent without discontinuing her reading.
In a moment Mr. Preston Wynne was warmly shaking hands with Sir Robert, after which he reverently touched the extended tips of Lady Seton’s fingers, bowed, and accepted a chair facing the one where “Lady Hamilton” was now enjoying the audible slumber of the corpulent.
“I hope I am not too early,” he said, beamingly. “You know I wanted to catch you before you left the hotel for your constitutional, Sir Robert. I remember your habits, you see!”