I turned suddenly, and,—there he was, seated on a brass-studded oak chest almost behind the heavy door, swinging one leg and toying with a seventeenth century rapier. Through his narrow-slitted eyes, he was examining me from top to toe in apparent disgust: tall, thin, perfectly groomed, handsome, cynical, devil-may-care.
I tried to speak calmly, but my anger was greater than I could properly control. Poor little Peggy Darrol was uppermost in my thoughts.
"'Gad, George,—you look like a tramp. Why don't you spruce up a bit? Hobnailed boots, home-spun breeches; ugh! it's enough to make your noble ancestors turn in their coffins and groan.
"Don't you know the Brammerton motto is, 'Clean,—within and without.'"
He bent the blade of his rapier until it formed a half hoop, then he let it fly back with a twang.
"And some of us have degenerated so," I answered, "that we apply the motto only in so far as it affects the outside."
"While some of us, of course, are so busy scrubbing and polishing at our inwards," he put in, "that we have no time to devote to the parts that are seen. But that seems to me deuced like cant; and a cheap variety of it at that.
"So you have taken to preaching, as well as farming. Fine combination, little brother! However, George,—dear boy,—we shall let it go at that. There is something you are anxious to unload. Get it out of your system, man."
"I have just been hearing that you are going to marry Lady Rosemary Granton soon."
"Why, yes! of course. You may congratulate me, for I have that distinguished honour," he drawled.