“It is from Temeszy,” said Caerleon, opening it. “The steward must have telegraphed to him yesterday as soon as we were gone. He has business in Paris which will keep him there for more than a month, but he wants us to take up our quarters at the castle, ride his horses, hunt his wolves, or whatever else in the way of game there may be about, and so on—in fact, use the house as if it was our own.”
“Well, what do you think?” asked Cyril.
“If you ask me,” said Caerleon, slowly, “I think that we might as well have stayed at Llandiarmid as bury ourselves out there without Temeszy or any one to speak to.”
“I see,” said Cyril. “You mean to stay on here for the present, then?”
“Yes, I think we might.”
“But you forget that Mr or M. O’Malachy is coming back. What is one to call a fellow who has an Irish father and a Sarmatian mother, and has been brought up abroad? But anyhow, he is coming, and we have got his room.”
“I forgot that,” said Caerleon, rather crestfallen. “We must find out to-night when he is expected. There’s no need to leave until he comes.”
Once more Cyril drew dark inferences from his brother’s words, but he made no remark, and at the appointed time they presented themselves in Madame O’Malachy’s salon, where a most cordial welcome awaited them. They were the only guests, and it fell naturally to Caerleon to escort his hostess to the table and to sit beside her, a privilege for which he was not as grateful as he ought to have been, for he could hear Cyril and Nadia wrangling busily throughout the meal. Guessing that his brother was treating Mdlle. O’Malachy to a little fin de siècle philosophy, he had no difficulty in imagining the light in which it would strike her, and his anxiety to hear what she was saying in reply distracted his attention a little from her mother, who conversed vivaciously in French, addressing him as “mon cher marquis” in a way that reminded him vaguely of the Molière he had read when at school.
“I am longing that you should know my son,” she observed at last. “He is of the same age as your brother, and I have a presentiment that they will be friends. Louis is a true enthusiast, and it is this trait in his character that has caused us no small anxiety. My husband has perhaps told you that until a short time ago the unfortunate boy was an officer in the Scythian army. Would you believe that he has resigned his post in order to join the Thracian revolutionists?”
“Indeed?” said Caerleon, much interested; “and has he joined them yet?”