Still David stood with bowed head.
"It is as if you were predestined, my lord, to step in at a critical time of your country's need—with brains, education, conscience, and wealth—with every obstacle swept away."
Still before him stood Cassandra, white and silent; he could see only her.
"Every obstacle swept away," repeated the lawyer.
"And Cassandra, God help her and me." David slowly turned, lifted a glass of wine from the table, and drank it. "Well, so be it, so be it," he said aloud. "We'll join mother and Laura." At the door he paused, "You spoke of education—the learning of a physician is but little in the line of statesmanship. How soon will I be expected to take my seat?"
"If you ask my advice, my lord, I would say better wait a year. It will be advisable for you to go yourself to South Africa and look into your uncle's investments there—as a private individual, of course, not as a public servant. Two-thirds of the receipts have fallen off since the war; learn what may be saved from the wreckage, or if there be a wreckage. I'm inclined to think not all, for the investments were varied. Your uncle may have been a silent member, but he was certainly a man of good business judgment—" Mr. Stretton paused and coughed a little apologetically before adding: "Not an inherited talent, only—ah—cultivated—cultivated—you know. Good business judgment is not a trait inherent in our peerage, as a rule."
David was amused and entered the drawing-room with a smile on his face. His mother was pleased and rose instantly, coming forward with both hands extended to take his. He understood it as a welcome back to the family circle, the quiet talks and the evening lamp, less formal than the oppressive dinner had been. He held her hands thus offered and kissed the little anxious line on her brow, then playfully smoothed it with his finger.
"We mustn't let it become permanent, you know, mother."
"No, David. It will go now you are at home."
He did not know that his mother and Laura had been having a lively discussion apropos of the silent tilt at the dinner-table, his sister pleading for a return to the old ways, and a release from such state and ceremony. "At least while we are by ourselves, mamma. Anyway, I know David will just hate it, and I don't see what good a title is if we must become perfect slaves to it."