“Oh, they all are now, you know. Cocky’s very lazy, but he’s very clever.”
“My lord don’t want to be clever; he’ll be duke,” said Mrs. Massarene, intending no sarcasm. “I can’t think, ma’am, as your noble husband would like to toil and moil in the City.”
“No—no; but to be on things, you know,” answered her visitor vaguely. “You send Mr. Massarene to me and we’ll talk about it. He mustn’t mind if Lord Kenilworth only gives his name and never shows.”
Mrs. Massarene’s was a slow brain and a dull one, but she was not really stupid; in some matters she was shrewd, and she began dimly to perceive what was expected of her and her William, and what quid pro quo would be demanded by this lovely lady who had the keys of society if she used any of these keys in their favor; she had had glimmerings of this before, but it had never presented itself before her so clearly as now. She had sense enough, however, to keep the discovery to herself. “I’ll tell Mr. Massarene, ma’am,” she said meekly, “and I know he’ll be very proud to wait on you. Shall it be to-morrow?”
“Yes; to-morrow, before luncheon. About half-past twelve.”
“I won’t forget, ma’am.”
“And I’ll come and dine with you next week. I’ll bring some people, my sisters; they won’t mind, Carrie certainly won’t. Lady Wisbeach, you know. What day? Oh, I don’t know. I must go home and look at my book. I think there is something of no importance that I can throw over next week.”
“And how many will be there at dinner, ma’am,” asked Mrs. Massarene, feeling hot all over, as she would have expressed it, at the prospect of this banquet.
“Oh, well, I can’t say. I’ll see who will come. You have a very good chef, haven’t you? If not I could get you Van Holstein’s. You know when people are well fed once they’ll come to be fed again, and they tell others.”
“Just like fowls,” murmured Mrs. Massarene, her mind reverting to the poultry yard of her youth, with the hens running over and upsetting each other in their haste to get to the meal-pan.