"You could, if you would, make matters easy for her and her mother in the county," said Aldous, anxious to carry it off lightly. "You could, if you would, without committing yourself to any personal contact with Boyce himself, make it possible for me to bring her here, so that you and my aunt might see her and judge."
The old man's expression darkened.
"What, take back that note, Aldous! I never wrote anything with greater satisfaction in my life!"
"Well,—more or less," said Aldous, quietly. "A very little would do it. A man in Richard Boyce's position will naturally not claim very much—will take what he can get."
"And you mean besides," said his grandfather, interrupting him, "that I must send your aunt to call?"
"It will hardly be possible to ask Miss Boyce here unless she does!" said Aldous.
"And you reckon that I am not likely to go to Mellor, even to see her? And you want me to say a word to other people—to the Winterbournes and the Levens, for instance?"
"Precisely," said Aldous.
Lord Maxwell meditated; then rose.
"Let me now appease the memory of Clarke by going to bed!" (Clarke was his lordship's medical attendant and autocrat.) "I must sleep upon this, Aldous."