“Ah, I understand,” he said, bowing gravely, and with a touch of melancholy which became him vastly; “I never had the good fortune to please the lady—as you have done.”
He smiled again, and waved away a clumsy attempt of mine to reply.
“But that is my misfortune—perhaps, though unconsciously, my fault. Still, there is the trinket. I leave it in your hands, in trust for those of your wife. My respectful duty and service to her and—to the heir of your house! Come, Louis, will you have a ride in the coach as far as the bridge and back? I have left my Lord Lieutenant there visiting some of his doubtful tenants. I will pick him up when he is ready, and then bring this little friend of mine back.”
That night Louis wept and stamped in a black anger.
“I don’t want to stop here,” he said; “I want to go with Uncle Lalor in the gilded coach.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII
BY WATER AND THE WORD
During my holidays at Heathknowes I found myself necessarily in frequent communication with my Lord Advocate. For though I was the actual, he was the ultimate editor of the Universal Review. I felt that he had done so much for me, and that we were now on such terms that I might without presumption ask him a private question about Lalor Maitland. Because, knowing the man to have been mixed with some very doubtful business, I wondered that a man of such honour and probity as the Advocate would in any circumstances act by such means—much less countenance his being put forward in the Government interest at a contested election.