‘Congratulations, dear Algy; the happy day has dawned.—Yours most sincerely,
‘Chester.’
‘Among other disasters, you will lose this friend, Algy,’ moaned his father. ‘No one can ever speak to you again; no one can——’
‘Tell my mother, sir, that I am ready,’ he interrupted, with a most extraordinary change of manner. ‘I will be with her as soon as I can complete my toilet. One must be smart upon one’s wedding-day. Go, dear father, tell her I am coming downstairs, and beg her not to make a row—I mean, not to allude to the late distressing scene.’
He pushed his father out of the room.
Two minutes later he stood in the breakfast-room, actually laughing as if nothing had happened.
‘I am glad my son,’ said his mother, ‘that you have returned to your senses.’
‘Yes,’ he replied gaily, as if it had been a question of some simple act of petulance; ‘it is a good thing, isn’t it? Have you seen Lord Chester’s gift, sisters?’
The girls looked at each other in a kind of stupor. What could men be like that they should so lightly pass from one extreme to the other?
‘Tell the boy,’ he ordered the footman, ‘to lead the horse to the Green; I should like all the lads to see it. Tell them it is Lord Chester’s gift, with his congratulations on the dawn of the happy day—tell them to remember the dawn of the happy day.’