“It is my mother who insists on staying out in the night air, which I disapprove of,” said Richard. “The Italians have a prejudice on the subject of sunset. They think it the most dangerous hour of the day. I am so much of an Italian now—and likely to be more so—that I have taken up their ideas; at least so far as sunset is concerned.”
“So much an Italian—and likely to be more so!—I hope not, I hope not, Richard,” said his father. “After this good beginning you have made, it will be hard upon your poor mother and me if we cannot tempt you home.”
“Or drive me away for ever,” said Richard, so low that his mother only heard him. She grasped his arm with a sudden vehemence of mingled love and anger, which for the moment startled him, and then dropped it, and stepped in through the window, letting the subject drop altogether. She was unusually bright at dinner, excited, as it seemed, by the sharp little encounter she had just had, which had stirred up all her powers. Lord Eskside, who was not of a fanciful nature, and whose moods did not change so quickly, regarded her with some suspicion. He was himself depressed by his son’s approaching departure, and somewhat disposed to be angry, as he generally was when depressed.
“You must have been saying something to your mother to raise her spirits,” he said, after one or two ineffectual attempts to subdue her—when Richard and he were left to their claret.
“Not I, sir,” said Richard, “on the contrary; my mother has ideas with which I disagree entirely.”
“Ay, boy, to be sure,” said the old lord, “she was saying something to me. Then it was opposition, and not satisfaction as I thought? You see, Richard, women have their own ways of thinking. We cannot always follow their reasoning; but in the main your mother’s perhaps right.”
And having said this, in mild backing up of his wife’s bolder suggestions, Lord Eskside changed the subject and spoke of the property, and of new leases he was granting, and the improvement of the estate.
“There is a great deal of land about Lasswade that might be feued very advantageously—but I would not do it without ascertaining your feeling on the subject, Richard. It can’t make much difference in my time; but in the course of nature that time can’t be very long.”
“I wish it might be a hundred years,” said Richard, with no false sentiment; for indeed, apart from natural affection, to be Lord Eskside and live up here in the paternal château among the woods did not charm his imagination much.
“That is all very pleasant for you to say,” said his father, receiving and dismissing the compliment with a wave of his hand; “but, as I say, in the course of nature my time must be but short. There is just the question about the amenities, upon which every man has his own opinions——”