“I think he’s got a career before him,” said Serena; “the House always fills when he’s speaking, and that’s a good sign. And then he’s young and got rather an attractive personality, which is always something in the political world.”
“His lack of money will handicap him, unless he can find himself a rich wife or persuade someone to die and leave him a fat legacy,” said Francesca; “since M.P.’s have become the recipients of a salary rather more is expected and demanded of them in the expenditure line than before.”
“Yes, the House of Commons still remains rather at the opposite pole to the Kingdom of Heaven as regards entrance qualifications,” observed Lady Caroline.
“There ought to be no difficulty about Youghal picking up a girl with money,” said Serena; “with his prospects he would make an excellent husband for any woman with social ambitions.”
And she half sighed, as though she almost regretted that a previous matrimonial arrangement precluded her from entering into the competition on her own account.
Francesca, under an assumption of languid interest, was watching Lady Caroline narrowly for some hint of suppressed knowledge of Youghal’s courtship of Miss de Frey.
“Whom are you marrying and giving in marriage?”
The question came from George St. Michael, who had strayed over from a neighbouring table, attracted by the fragments of small-talk that had reached his ears.
St. Michael was one of those dapper bird-like illusorily-active men, who seem to have been in a certain stage of middle-age for as long as human memory can recall them. A close-cut peaked beard lent a certain dignity to his appearance—a loan which the rest of his features and mannerisms were continually and successfully repudiating. His profession, if he had one, was submerged in his hobby, which consisted of being an advance-agent for small happenings or possible happenings that were or seemed imminent in the social world around him; he found a perpetual and unflagging satisfaction in acquiring and retailing any stray items of gossip or information, particularly of a matrimonial nature, that chanced to come his way. Given the bare outline of an officially announced engagement he would immediately fill it in with all manner of details, true or, at any rate, probable, drawn from his own imagination or from some equally exclusive source. The Morning Post might content itself with the mere statement of the arrangement which would shortly take place, but it was St. Michael’s breathless little voice that proclaimed how the contracting parties had originally met over a salmon-fishing incident, why the Guards’ Chapel would not be used, why her Aunt Mary had at first opposed the match, how the question of the children’s religious upbringing had been compromised, etc., etc., to all whom it might interest and to many whom it might not. Beyond his industriously-earned pre-eminence in this special branch of intelligence, he was chiefly noteworthy for having a wife reputed to be the tallest and thinnest woman in the Home Counties. The two were sometimes seen together in Society, where they passed under the collective name of St. Michael and All Angles.
“We are trying to find a rich wife for Courtenay Youghal,” said Serena, in answer to St. Michael’s question.