distinction in more ways than one. He was honorable, in the first
place, as being the son (second son) of that once-rising
solicitor, who was now Lord Holchester. He was honorable, in the
second place, as having won the highest popular distinction which
the educational system of modern England can bestow--he had
pulled the stroke-oar in a University boat-race. Add to this,
that nobody had ever seen him read any thing but a newspaper, and
that nobody had ever known him to be backward in settling a
bet--and the picture of this distinguished young Englishman will
be, for the present, complete.
Blanche's eye naturally rested on him. Blanche's voice naturally
picked him out as the first player on her side.
"I choose Mr. Delamayn," she said.
As the name passed her lips the flush on Miss Silvester's face
died away, and a deadly paleness took its place. She made a
movement to leave the summer-house--checked herself abruptly--and
laid one hand on the back of a rustic seat at her side. A
gentleman behind her, looking at the hand, saw it clench itself
so suddenly and so fiercely that the glove on it split. The
gentleman made a mental memorandum, and registered Miss Silvester
in his private books as "the devil's own temper."
Meanwhile Mr. Delamayn, by a strange coincidence, took exactly
the same course which Miss Silvester had taken before him. He,
too, attempted to withdraw from the coming game.
"Thanks very much," he said. "Could you additionally honor me by
choosing somebody else? It's not in my line."
Fifty years ago such an answer as this, addressed to a lady,
would have been considered inexcusably impertinent. The social
code of the present time hailed it as something frankly amusing.
The company laughed. Blanche lost her temper.
"Can't we interest you in any thing but severe muscular exertion,
Mr. Delamayn?" she asked, sharply. "Must you always be pulling in
a boat-race, or flying over a high jump? If you had a mind, you
would want to relax it. You have got muscles instead. Why not
relax _ them?"_
The shafts of Miss Lundie's bitter wit glided off Mr. Geoffrey
Delamayn like water off a duck's back.
"Just as you please," he said, with stolid good-humor. "Don't be
offended. I came here with ladies--and they wouldn't let me
smoke. I miss my smoke. I thought I'd slip away a bit and have
it. All right! I'll play."
"Oh! smoke by all means!" retorted Blanche. "I shall choose
somebody else. I won't have you!"
The honorable young gentleman looked unaffectedly relieved. The
petulant young lady turned her back on him, and surveyed the
guests at the other extremity of the summer-house.
"Who shall I choose?" she said to herself.
A dark young man--with a face burned gipsy-brown by the sun; with
something in his look and manner suggestive of a roving life, and
perhaps of a familiar acquaintance with the sea--advanced shyly,
and said, in a whisper:
"Choose me!"
Blanche's face broke prettily into a charming smile. Judging from
appearances, the dark young man had a place in her estimation
peculiarly his own.
"You!" she said, coquettishly. "You are going to leave us in an
hour's time!"
He ventured a step nearer. "I am coming back," he pleaded, "the
day after to-morrow."
"You play very badly!"
"I might improve--if you would teach me."
"Might you? Then I will teach you!" She turned, bright and rosy,
to her step-mother. "I choose Mr. Arnold Brinkworth," she said.
Here, again, there appeared to be something in a name unknown to
celebrity, which nevertheless produced its effect--not, this
time, on Miss Silvester, but on Sir Patrick. He looked at Mr.
Brinkworth with a sudden interest and curiosity. If the lady of
the house had not claimed his attention at the moment he would
evidently have spoken to the dark young man.
But it was Lady Lundie's turn to choose a second player on her
side. Her brother-in-law was a person of some importance; and she
had her own motives for ingratiating herself with the head of the
family. She surprised the whole company by choosing Sir Patrick.
"Mamma!" cried Blanche. "What can you be thinking of? Sir Patrick
won't play. Croquet wasn't discovered in his time."
Sir Patrick never allowed "his time" to be made the subject of
disparaging remarks by the younger generation without paying the
y ounger generation back in its own coin.
"In _my_ time, my dear," he said to his niece, "people were
expected to bring some agreeable quality with them to social
meetings of this sort. In your time you have dispensed with all
that. Here," remarked the old gentleman, taking up a croquet
mallet from the table near him, "is one of the qualifications for
success in modern society. And here," he added, taking up a ball,
"is another. Very good. Live and learn. I'll play! I'll play!"
Lady Lundie (born impervious to all sense of irony) smiled
graciously.
"I knew Sir Patrick would play," she said, "to please me,"
Sir Patrick bowed with satirical politeness.
"Lady Lundie," he answered, "you read me like a book." To the
astonishment of all persons present under forty he emphasized
those words by laying his hand on his heart, and quoting poetry.
"I may say with Dryden," added the gallant old gentleman:
" 'Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet.' "
Lady Lundie looked unaffectedly shocked. Mr. Delamayn went a step
farther. He interfered on the spot--with the air of a man who
feels himself imperatively called upon to perform a public duty.
"Dryden never said that," he remarked, "I'll answer for it."
Sir Patrick wheeled round with the help of his ivory cane, and
looked Mr. Delamayn hard in the face.
"Do you know Dryden, Sir, better than I do?" he asked.
The Honorable Geoffrey answered, modestly, "I should say I did. I
have rowed three races with him, and we trained together."
Sir Patrick looked round him with a sour smile of triumph.
"Then let me tell you, Sir," he said, "that you trained with a
man who died nearly two hundred years ago."
Mr. Delamayn appealed, in genuine bewilderment, to the company
generally:
"What does this old gentleman mean?" he asked. "I am speaking of
Tom Dryden, of Corpus. Every body in the University knows _him._"
"I am speaking," echoed Sir Patrick, "of John Dryden the Poet.
Apparently, every body in the University does _not_ know _him!"_
Mr. Delamayn answered, with a cordial earnestness very pleasant
to see:
"Give you my word of honor, I never heard of him before in my
life! Don't be angry, Sir. _I'm_ not offended with _you._" He
smiled, and took out his brier-wood pipe. "Got a light?" he
asked, in the friendliest possible manner.
Sir Patrick answered, with a total absence of cordiality:
"I don't smoke, Sir."
Mr. Delamayn looked at hi
m, without taking the slightest offense:
"You don't smoke!" he repeated. "I wonder how you get through
your spare time?"
Sir Patrick closed the conversation:
"Sir," he said, with a low bow, "you _may_ wonder."
While this little skirmish was proceeding Lady Lundie and her
step-daughter had organized the game; and the company, players
and spectators, were beginning to move toward the lawn. Sir
Patrick stopped his niece on her way out, with the dark young man
in close attendance on her.
"Leave Mr. Brinkworth with me," he said. "I want to speak to
him."
Blanche issued her orders immediately. Mr. Brinkworth was
sentenced to stay with Sir Patrick until she wanted him for the
game. Mr. Brinkworth wondered, and obeyed.
During the exercise of this act of authority a circumstance
occurred at the other end of the summer-house. Taking advantage
of the confusion caused by the general movement to the lawn, Miss
Silvester suddenly placed herself close to Mr. Delamayn.
"In ten minutes," she whispered, "the summer-house will be empty.
Meet me here."
The Honorable Geoffrey started, and looked furtively at the
visitors about him.
"Do you think it's safe?" he whispered back.
The governess's sensitive lips trembled, with fear or with anger,
it was hard to say which.
"I insist on it!" she answered, and left him.
Mr. Delamayn knitted his handsome eyebrows as he looked after
her, and then left the summer-house in his turn. The rose-garden
at the back of the building was solitary for the moment. He took
out his pipe and hid himself among the roses. The smoke came from
his mouth in hot and hasty puffs. He was usually the gentlest of
masters--to his pipe. When he hurried that confidential servant,
it was a sure sign of disturbance in the inner man.
CHAPTER THE THIRD.
THE DISCOVERIES.
BUT two persons were now left in the summer-house--Arnold
Brinkworth and Sir Patrick Lundie.
"Mr. Brinkworth," said the old gentleman, "I have had no
opportunity of speaking to you before this; and (as I hear that
you are to leave us, to-day) I may find no opportunity at a later
time. I want to introduce myself. Your father was one of my
dearest friends--let me make a friend of your father's son."
He held out his hands, and mentioned his name.
Arnold recognized it directly. "Oh, Sir Patrick!" he said,
warmly, "if my poor father had only taken your advice--"
"He would have thought twice before he gambled away his fortune
on the turf; and he might have been alive here among us, instead
of dying an exile in a foreign land," said Sir Patrick, finishing
the sentence which the other had begun. "No more of that! Let's
talk of something else. Lady Lundie wrote to me about you the
other day. She told me your aunt was dead, and had left you heir
to her property in Scotland. Is that true?--It is?--I
congratulate you with all my heart. Why are you visiting here,
instead of looking after your house and lands? Oh! it's only
three-and-twenty miles from this; and you're going to look after
it to-day, by the next train? Quite right. And--what?
what?--coming back again the day after to-morrow? Why should you
come back? Some special attraction here, I suppose? I hope it's
the right sort of attraction. You're very young--you're exposed
to all sorts of temptations. Have you got a solid foundation of
good sense at the bottom of you? It is not inherited from your
poor father, if you have. You must have been a mere boy when he
ruined his children's prospects. How have you lived from that
time to this? What were you doing when your aunt's will made an
idle man of you for life?"
The question was a searching one. Arnold answered it, without the
slightest hesitation; speaking with an unaffected modesty and
simplicity which at once won Sir Patrick's heart.
"I was a boy at Eton, Sir," he said, "when my father's losses
ruined him. I had to leave school, and get my own living; and I
have got it, in a roughish way, from that time to this. In plain
English, I have followed the sea--in the merchant-service."
"In plainer English still, you met adversity like a brave lad,
and you have fairly earned the good luck that has fallen to you,"
rejoined Sir Patrick. "Give me your hand--I have taken a liking
to you. You're not like the other young fellows of the present
time. I shall call you 'Arnold.' You mus'n't return the
compliment and call me 'Patrick,' mind--I'm too old to be treated
in that way. Well, and how do you get on here? What sort of a
woman is my sister-in-law? and what sort of a house is this?"
Arnold burst out laughing.
"Those are extraordinary questions for you to put to me," he
said. "You talk, Sir, as if you were a stranger here!"
Sir Patrick touched a spring in the knob of his ivory cane. A
little gold lid flew up, and disclosed the snuff-box hidden
inside. He took a pinch, and chuckled satirically over some
passing thought, which he did not think it necessary to
communicate to his young friend.
"I talk as if I was a stranger here, do I?" he resumed. "That's
exactly what I am. Lady Lundie and I correspond on excellent
terms; but we run in different grooves, and we see each other as
seldom as possible. My story," continued the pleasant old man,
with a charming frankness which leveled all differences of age
and rank between Arnold and himself, "is not entirely unlike
yours; though I _am_ old enough to be your grandfather. I was
getting my living, in my way (as a crusty old Scotch lawyer),
when my brother married again. His death, without leaving a son
by either of his wives, gave me a lift in the world, like you.
Here I am (to my own sincere regret) the present baronet. Yes, to
my sincere regret! All sorts of responsibilities which I never
bargained for are thrust on my shou lders. I am the head of the
family; I am my niece's guardian; I am compelled to appear at
this lawn-party--and (between ourselves) I am as completely out
of my element as a man can be. Not a single familiar face meets
_me_ among all these fine people. Do you know any body here?"
"I have one friend at Windygates," said Arnold. "He came here
this morning, like you. Geoffrey Delamayn."
As he made the reply, Miss Silvester appeared at the entrance to
the summer-house. A shadow of annoyance passed over her face when
she saw that the place was occupied. She vanished, unnoticed, and
glided back to the game.
Sir Patrick looked at the son of his old friend, with every
appearance of being disappointed in the young man for the first
time.
"Your choice of a friend rather surprises me," he said.
Arnold artlessly accepted the words as an appeal to him for
information.
"I beg your pardon, Sir--there's nothing surprising in it," he
returned. "We were school-fellows at Eton, in the old times. And
I have met Geo
ffrey since, when he was yachting, and when I was
with my ship. Geoffrey saved my life, Sir Patrick," he added, his
voice rising, and his eyes brightening with honest admiration of
his friend. "But for him, I should have been drowned in a
boat-accident. Isn't _that_ a good reason for his being a friend
of mine?"
"It depends entirely on the value you set on your life," said Sir
Patrick.
"The value I set on my life?" repeated Arnold. "I set a high
value on it, of course!"
"In that case, Mr. Delamayn has laid you under an obligation."
"Which I can never repay!"
"Which you will repay one of these days, with interest--if I know
any thing of human nature," answered Sir Patrick.
He said the words with the emphasis of strong conviction. They
were barely spoken when Mr. Delamayn appeared (exactly as Miss
Silvester had appeared) at the entrance to the summer-house. He,
too, vanished, unnoticed--like Miss Silvester again. But there
the parallel stopped. The Honorable Geoffrey's expression, on
discovering the place to be occupied, was, unmistakably an
expression of relief.
Arnold drew the right inference, this time, from Sir Patrick's
language and Sir Patrick's tones. He eagerly took up the defense
of his friend.
"You said that rather bitterly, Sir," he remarked. "What has
Geoffrey done to offend you?"
"He presumes to exist--that's what he has done," retorted Sir
Patrick. "Don't stare! I am speaking generally. Your friend is
the model young Briton of the present time. I don't like the
model young Briton. I don't see the sense of crowing over him as
a superb national production, because he is big and strong, and
drinks beer with impunity, and takes a cold shower bath all the
year round. There is far too much glorification in England, just
now, of the mere physical qualities which an Englishman shares
with the savage and the brute. And the ill results are beginning
to show themselves already! We are readier than we ever were to
practice all that is rough in our national customs, and to excuse
all that is violent and brutish in our national acts. Read the
popular books--attend the popular amusements; and you will find
at the bottom of them all a lessening regard for the gentler
graces of civilized life, and a growing admiration for the
virtues of the aboriginal Britons!"
Arnold listened in blank amazement. He had been the innocent
means of relieving Sir Patrick's mind of an accumulation of
social protest, unprovided with an issue for some time past. "
How hot you are over it, Sir!" he exclaimed, in irrepressible
astonishment.
Sir Patrick instantly recovered himself. The genuine wonder
expressed in the young man's face was irresistible.
"Almost as hot," he said, "as if I was cheering at a boat-race,
or wrangling over a betting-book--eh? Ah, we were so easily
heated when I was a young man! Let's change the subject. I know
nothing to the prejudice of your friend, Mr. Delamayn. It's the
cant of the day," cried Sir Patrick, relapsing again, "to take
these physically-wholesome men for granted as being
morally-wholesome men into the bargain. Time will show whether
the cant of the day is right.--So you are actually coming back to
Lady Lundie's after a mere flying visit to your own property? I
repeat, that is a most extraordinary proceeding on the part of a
landed gentleman like you. What's the attraction here--eh?"
Before Arnold could reply Blanche called to him from the lawn.
His color rose, and he turned eagerly to go out. Sir Patrick
nodded his head with the air of a man who had been answered to
his own entire satisfaction. "Oh!" he said, "_that's_ the
attraction, is it?"
Arnold's life at sea had left him singularly ignorant of the ways