‘Indeed!’ Lady Longmoor exclaimed. ‘And pray who, or what, took you to poor dead-alive innocent Bath?’
‘My father sent for me, and, what’s more, saw me. He struck me as rather badly out of sorts and lonely.’
‘Ah! yes,’ she said, turning to me with the prettiest air of distress imaginable, ‘it is so terribly trying, Mr. Brownlow. I cannot bear leaving my dear lord in his wretched state of health. It makes me miserable. But what is to be done? Some one must look into things from time to time, you know. It is wrong to leave dear beautiful Hover entirely to the agent, the servants, and so on. Of course, they are as faithful and devoted as possible—but still it is only wise—don’t you think?—only right—I should go there occasionally. Though I hate business, I do what I can.’
‘I hope to relieve you of the bulk of those bothers in future,’ Hartover put in quietly.
‘You—you charming scatterbrain? What next? No, mon enfant, no—they are not de votre âge, responsibility and business worries. Continue to play at soldiers and amuse yourself while you can.’
‘I am tired of playing at soldiers: so confoundedly tired of it that, once I am my own master—I come of age next month, you remember,—I mean to send in my papers. There is nothing to keep me in London now’⸺
‘Nothing—nobody, to keep you in London now?’ she interrupted teasingly.
I listened in some trepidation. She trod on dangerous ground. Had the boy sufficient reserve force, after the ordeal he had so lately been through, to keep his temper?
‘No, nothing,’ he repeated. ‘I think there had better be no misunderstanding between us upon that point—and upon some others. They need clearing up—have needed it for a long time past. That is the reason of my asking to see you to-night. In the ordinary course of events we don’t, as you know, often meet. I have to seize my opportunity when I am fortunate enough to get it. Plainly, I do not believe my father can live very long’⸺