The foremost of these was, that it was a pity so thoroughbred-looking a woman has such an unutterable brute for a sire. The second was that he had been guilty himself of discourtesy and incivility toward a lady to whom he already owed some apology. But he was extremely angry at the snare which had been spread for him in this innocent old house of Bedlowes.
He stayed three days in the same house with them, because he had no decent pretext to hasten his departure, but he avoided all chance of increased acquaintance as he would have avoided the bubonic plague in his travels through Thibet.
“He’s only a second-class earl and gives himself such airs as that!” said Mr. Massarene, in great displeasure, to his daughter when he could speak to her unheard.
“What do you mean by a second-class earl? It is an expression unknown in ‘Burke,’” asked his daughter in her coldest accents. Mr. Massarene explained that he meant an earl who had very little money, whose chief estates were in Ireland, and who was not a knight of any Order or anything of that decorative kind.
“And he said that he doesn’t even go to Court,” he ended as a climax.
“He said nothing of the kind,” replied Katherine. “He said he was not in the Prince’s set, which means—well, which means—never mind what it means. As for his rank, it is a very old creation; at least, very old for England; the Courcys of Faldon go back to the Conqueror.”
Mr. Massarene looked sharply at his daughter. “I thought you didn’t like the man?”
“I neither like nor dislike him. I do not know him.”
Then as this seemed to her sensitive conscience something approaching to an untruth, she added: “I met Lord Hurstmanceaux as I came to Vale Royal in the train that snowy day, but that can scarcely be called an acquaintance. I think you had better not ask him there, if you will allow me to say so, for he seemed much irritated at his cousin’s sale of the place to you.”
“The damned starched puppy! What is the sale to him? Roxhall’s old enough to know his own business, eh?” muttered Mr. Massarene, as he thought to himself that the pet project of Lady Kenilworth would not be easy of realization. It was certainly not farther advanced by her careful arrangement of the visit to Bedlowes.