“I know nothing of the kind.”
“Ah, but I think you do. If you persist in refusing this invitation will it not be because you are afraid of making Lady Lufton angry? I do not know what there can be in that woman that she is able to hold both you and Lufton in leading-strings.”
Robarts, of course, denied the charge and protested that he was not to be taken back to his own parsonage by any fear of Lady Lufton. But though he made such protest with warmth, he knew that he did so ineffectually. Sowerby only smiled and said that the proof of the pudding was in the eating.
“What is the good of a man keeping a curate if it be not to save him from that sort of drudgery?” he asked.
“Drudgery! If I were a drudge how could I be here to-day?”
“Well, Robarts, look here. I am speaking now, perhaps, with more of the energy of an old friend than circumstances fully warrant; but I am an older man than you, and as I have a regard for you I do not like to see you throw up a good game when it is in your hands.”
“Oh, as far as that goes, Sowerby, I need hardly tell you that I appreciate your kindness.”
“If you are content,” continued the man of the world, “to live at Framley all your life, and to warm yourself in the sunshine of the dowager there, why, in such case, it may perhaps be useless for you to extend the circle of your friends; but if you have higher ideas than these, I think you will be very wrong to omit the present opportunity of going to the duke’s. I never knew the duke go so much out of his way to be civil to a clergyman as he has done in this instance.”
“I am sure I am very much obliged to him.”
“The fact is, that you may, if you please, make yourself popular in the county; but you cannot do it by obeying all Lady Lufton’s behests. She is a dear old woman, I am sure.”