"Absurd!" responded the wrathful little woman.
"So it appears, at the first blush. But when we come to look at the advantages—now do listen reasonably for a moment," he broke off, "you are as much interested in this as I am. He will settle hundreds of thousands upon her, and cancel all my debts to him besides."
"Did he say so?" quickly cried the countess, putting off her anger to a less interested moment.
"He did," replied the earl, forgetting that he had improvised the hundreds of thousands. "And in addition to putting me straight, he will give me a handsome sum down. You shall have five hundred pounds of it for your milliner, Madame Damereau, which will enable you all to get a new rig-out," concluded the wily man, conscious that if his self-willed better-half set her temper against the match, the Archbishop of Canterbury himself could never tie it into one.
"Which of them does he want?" inquired the countess, snappishly, as if wishing to intimate that, though she might have to say Yes, it should be done with an ill grace. "He's talking now with—which is it?—Mary."
"I thought it was Grace," began the earl, in a deprecatory tone; "I took that for granted——"
"Dinner, my lady," came the interruption, as the door was flung open: and the earl started up, and said not another word. He thought it well that his lady wife should digest the news so far, before proceeding further with it. The countess on her part, understood that all was told, and that the desired bride was Grace.
Mr. Grubb gave his arm to Lady Acorn, and sat down at her right hand. Lady Grace was next him on the other side. He was an agreeable man, of easy manners. Could they ignore the City house, and had he boasted of ancestry and a high-sounding name, they could not have wished for a companion who was more thoroughly the gentleman. Unusually agreeable he was this evening, for he now believed that no bar would be thrown in the way of his winning the Lady Adela. He had long admired her above all women; he had long loved her, and he saw no reason why any bar should be thrown: what incompatibility ought to exist between the portionless daughter of a ruined peer and a British merchant of high character and standing and next to unlimited wealth? The ruined peer, however, had he heard this argument, might have said the merchant reasoned only in accordance with his merchant-origin; that he could not be expected to understand distinctions which were above him.
Lady Acorn rose from table early. She had been making up her mind to the match, during dinner: like her husband, she discovered, on reflection, its numerous advantages, and she was impatient to disclose the matter to Grace. Mr. Grubb held the door open as they filed out, for which the countess thanked him by a bow more cordial than she had ever bestowed on him in her life. Whether it had ever occurred to Lady Acorn that this City man was probably the son of Catherine Grant, cannot be told. She had never alluded to it. Catherine had offended them all too greatly to be recalled even by name: and, so far as Lord Acorn went, he did not know such a person as Catherine had ever existed.
The girls gathered their chairs round the fire in the autumn evening, and began grumbling. "Engagements"—he did not say of what nature—had been Lord Acorn's plea for remaining in town when every one else had left it. Adela was especially bitter.