Every one in Paris two years before had said that the penniless young Englishman, Lord Ripon, wished to make a rich marriage, and that the capricious Miss Windsor, after having broken, cracked or temporarily discouraged a sufficient number of hearts, was at last ready to accept a lord and perhaps a master. But in the middle of the season the British Legation was recalled, and Geoffrey, after a few words of farewell, disappeared, and from the day of his leaving Paris Miss Windsor had heard nothing of him. She did not know herself whether she cared for him; he was good-natured and amusing, and she liked to have him talk to her and be her slave, but when he was gone, the world was not a blank to her.
Still, it piqued her that Lord Brompton had effaced himself so completely from her life. "He might, at least, have written to let me know that he lived," she kept thinking. Of course she knew the name of his old estate, and she knew that he owned the porter's lodge and the few acres around it, for he had told her once that he still owned a little box in England, and that when the worst came to the worst he intended to crawl into it and shut the lid. When Jawkins sent his list of estates for rent, and she saw the name of Ripon House on it, her heart gave a little jump. Mr. Windsor had, of course, known of the affair between Lord Geoffrey and his daughter, and had neither approved nor disapproved of it. He knew that, if she made up her mind to marry, he would be consulted only as a matter of form. When she had informed him on their arrival that Lord Brompton was living in the neighborhood, and that she meant to invite him to dinner very soon, the shrewd old man smiled grimly, and acquiesced in her plan.
As her father sat musing before the fire, the door opened suddenly, and Maggie bounded into the room.
"Has Jawkins arrived, papa?" she asked.
"Yes; we have just been going over his list of guests together. By the way, Maggie, is your young man to be our guest?"
"Oh, papa!" Maggie exclaimed, perching herself upon one of his knees and stroking his chin with one of her dimpled hands, "how can you be so ill-bred as to speak of any one as my young man? Surely I have no proprietary rights over any man, save one very nice old fellow, who is so loyal to his sovereign that he never thinks of complaining of the injustice of taxation without representation."
"You reverse the ordinary process with me; subjects have been wont to blow up their sovereigns," answered her father, with a chuckle, "and you blow up me. You have not told me about Lord Brompton. It is a long time since you have seen him before to-day."
"Two whole years. He seems so dispirited."
"At not having escaped you?"
"Oh, you wicked old capitalist; not at all. At having been so long separated from me. It was very pleasant to see him again. He is such a friend of mine. I should say that he interested me more than any of the others."