"Eh? Well, here I am."
"Just so, your lordship. Miss McEachern entrusted me with this note to deliver to you in the event of her not being h'able to see you before dinner personally, your lordship."
"Right ho. Thanks."
He started to go upstairs, opening the envelope as he went. What could the girl be writing to him about? Surely, she wasn't going to start sending him love-letters, or any of that frightful rot? Deuced difficult it would be to play up to that sort of thing!
He stopped on the first landing to read the note, and at the opening line his jaw fell. The envelope fluttered to the ground.
"Oh, my sainted aunt!" he moaned, clutching at the banisters. "Now, I am in the soup!"
CHAPTER XXI — LOATHSOME GIFTS
There are doubtless men so constructed that they can find themselves accepted suitors without any particular whirl of emotion. King Solomon probably belonged to this class, and even Henry the Eighth must have become a trifle blase in time. But, to the average man, the sensations are complex and overwhelming. A certain stunned feeling is perhaps predominant. Blended with this is relief, the relief of a general who has brought a difficult campaign to a successful end, or of a member of a forlorn hope who finds that the danger is over and that he is still alive. To this must be added a newly born sense of magnificence. Our suspicion that we were something rather out of the ordinary run of men is suddenly confirmed. Our bosom heaves with complacency, and the world has nothing more to offer.