“’Pon honaw! Miss Courtney, I’m vewy sorry; I didn’t think of it, else I should have been most happy.”
“He’s gone, I suppose?”
“Aw, yas. He went away as soon as he undawstood I had company.”
And this was true—all true. The nobleman in question had really been in the front parlour, and had gone off on learning what was passing upstairs in the drawing-room.
He had parted, too, with a feeling of disappointment, almost chagrin; though it was not diplomatic business to which the villa was indebted for his visit.
However fruitless his calling had proved to him, it was not without advantage to Mr Swinton.
“The man who receives midnight visits from a lord, and that lord a distinguished statesman, must either be a lord himself, or a somebody!”
This was said in soliloquy by the retail storekeeper’s widow, as that night she stretched herself upon one of the luxurious couches of the “Clarendon.”
About the same time, her daughter gave way to a somewhat similar reflection.