A short, somewhat plump, dark-eyed young man, with a low but wide forehead, and a well-formed but rather thick-lipped mouth, lay in his dressing-gown on the sofa smoking, and at intervals conversing with a smart-looking valet. These were Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle, and his man Fisk. The time—a little past midnight; the place—a bedroom in Dalradern Castle.

“The governor gone to bed yet, Fisk?”

“No, Sir; he’s still talking with the old gent. They seemed to have had high words of it awhile ago, but they’ve got quiet again.”

“The governor came down expressly for that! He likes a bit of a breeze, too, and I believe it does him good.”

“Well, indeed I think you’re right, Sir! I never seed him in such health as after that trial where Mr. Hythe, the cashier, was sentenced to fourteen years. It was just like putting so much to the master’s own life.”

Whether the prospect of such longevity was so agreeable to the young gentleman, I cannot say, but he winced a little under the remark, and said, half moodily: “This old cove here ought to be thinking of that same journey. It’s slow work waiting for the death of a man, after he passes seventy-four or five. The assurance offices know that much.”

“It’s to be all yours, Master Dolly, ain’t it?” asked the man, in a coaxing sort of tone.

“Every stone of it, and every stick that the old boy doesn’t manage to cut down in the mean while.”

“You’ll never live here, Master Dolly? You’d not stand this lonesome place a week!”

“I don’t think I should, Tom. I might come down for the shooting, and bring some fellows with me, or I might run down for a few weeks ‘on the sly.’ By the way, have you found out who she is?”

“No, Sir; they’re as close as wax. Mrs. Simcox, I see, knows all about it, but she won’t say a word beyond the ‘young lady as is my master’s ward.’”

“Is she French or English?”

“Can’t say, Sir; but I suspect she’s French.”

“Is she his daughter?”

“At times I do think she is; but she ain’t like him, Sir, not a bit!”

“But why can’t you find out where she came from when she came here, who and what her friends, if she has any?”

“It’s clear impossible, Sir. They has all got orders to know nothing, and it’s nothing they know.”

“Did you try them with a ‘tip,’ Tom?”

“No use, Sir. In a town-house you can always do that, but these savages—they are just savages—in the country, think they are bound to their masters, body and soul.”

“What a mistake, Tom,” said the other, with a twinkle of the eye.

“Well, Sir, it’s a mistake when a man does not love his master;” and Mr. Fisk turned away and drew his hand across his eyes.

The grin upon young Mr. Ladarelle’s face was not a very flattering commentary on this show of feeling, but he did not speak for some minutes. At last he said: “He presented her to my governor as Mademoiselle O’Hara, saying, ‘My ward;’ and she received us as calmly as if she owned the place. That’s what puzzles me, Tom—her cool self-possession.”

“It ain’t nat’ral, Sir; it ain’t, indeed!”

“It is the sort of manner a man’s wife might have, and not even that if she were very young. It was as good as a play to see how she treated the governor as if he had never been here before, and that everything was new to him!”

Mr. Fisk rubbed his hands and laughed heartily at this joke.

“And as for myself, she scarcely condescended to acknowledge me.”

“Warn’t that too imperent, Sir?”

“It was not gracious, at all events, but we’ll know more of each other before the week is over. You’ll see.”

“That’s pretty sartain, Sir.”

“Not but I’d rather you could have found out something like a clue to her first of all.”

“Well, indeed, Sir, there wasn’t no way of doin’ it. I even went down to the stable-yard and saw her own boxes. She has two as neat nags as ever you’d see in the Park, and I tried it on with her groom—Bill Richey they call him—and there was nothing to be done, Sir. He had just one answer for everything; and when I said, ‘Can she ride?’ ‘Ride! why wouldn’t she!’ ‘Has she these two for her own use?’ says I. ‘Why wouldn’t she!’ says the fellow again. ‘So I suppose,’ says I, ‘she’s got lots of tin?’ ‘Why wouldn’t she have lots of it?’ said he, in the same voice. I don’t know whether he was more rogue or fool, Sir, but it was no good saying any more to him.”

Young Ladarelle arose, and with his hands thrust low in his pockets, and his head slightly bent forward, walked the room in deep thought. “Cool as he is, he’d scarcely have presented her to the governor if there was a screw loose,” muttered he; “he’s too much a man of the world for that. And yet, what can it be?”

“There must be something in it, that’s certain, Sir; for none of the neighbours visit here, and Sir Within don’t go out anywhere.”

“How did you learn that?”

“From the gardener, Sir. He was saying what a cruel shame it was to see the fruit rotting under the trees; and that last September he gave a basketful of pine-apples to the pigs, for that none of the people round would take presents when Sir Within sent them. ‘That’s all on account of her,’ says I, with a wink, for I thought I had him landed. ‘I don’t well know,’ says he, ‘what it’s on account of, but here’s the master comin’ up, and maybe he’ll tell you!’ And I had just time to cut away before he seen me.”

“All that we know, then, is, that there’s a mystery in it. Well,” muttered he, “I couldn’t ask a prettier skein to unravel. She is very beautiful! Are they late or early here, Tom?” asked he, after a pause.

“They be just as they please, Sir. The housekeeper told me there’s breakfast from ten to one every morning, and dinner is served for six people every day, though only them two selves sits down to it; but the old gent says, perhaps some one might drop in. He says that every day of the year, Sir; but they never drop in. Maybe he knows why!”

“Call me at eleven or twelve. I don’t care if it be one; for the day will be long enough here, after that.”

“They tell me it’s a very pretty place, Sir, and plenty to see.”

“I know every inch of it. I used to be here after my Rugby half, and I don’t want to recal those days, I promise you.”

“They’ve got some nice saddle-horses, too, Sir.”

“So they may; and they may ride them, too.”

“And the lake is alive with carp, I hear.”

“I’ll not diminish their number; I’ll promise them so much. I must stay here as long as the governor does, which, fortunately for me, cannot be many days; but tobacco and patience will see me through it.”

“I always said it, Sir: ‘When Master Dolly comes to his fortune, it’s not an old gaol he’ll sit down to pass his life in!’”

“It’s one of the finest and oldest places in the kingdom,” said the young man, angrily, “though perhaps a London cad might prefer Charing Cross to it.”

“No other orders, Sir?” said Mr. Fisk, curtly.

“No; you may go. Call me at nine—d’ye hear—at nine; and I’ll breakfast at ten.” And now was Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle alone with his own thoughts.

Though he had rebuked so promptly and so sharply the flippant impertinence of his servant, the young gentleman was by no means persuaded that a sojourn at Dalradern was likely to prove lively or agreeable. He thought Sir Within a bore, and he felt—very unmistakably felt—that the old Baronet regarded himself as a snob. The very way in which the old diplomatist seasoned his talk for his guests, the mode in which he brought all things to the meridian of Piccadilly, showed clearly the estimation in which he held them; and though the elder Ladarelle, whose head carried weightier cares, had no room for such thoughts, the young man brooded over and disliked them.

“By what reprisals should he resent this covert impertinence?” was the question that very often recurred to him. Should he affect to undervalue the place, and all the art treasures? Should he throw out dark hints of how much these tasteful toys might realise at a sale? Should he speculate vaguely on what the Castle would become, if, instead of a show-house, it were to be made what he would call habitable? Or, last of all, what tone should he assume towards Mademoiselle—should he slight her, or make love to her? In these self-discussions he fell asleep at last.

Long before any of his guests were awake the next morning, Sir Within had called for his writing-desk. It was a passion of his to ask for his writing materials before he was up. It smacked of old times, when, remembering something that might very well have been forgotten, he would dash off a few smart lines to a minister or a secretary, “with reference to the brief conversation with which your Excellency honoured me yesterday.” He was an adept in little notes; he knew how to throw off those small evasive terms which pass for epigrams, and give a sort of glitter to a style that was about as real as a theatrical costume.

He had suddenly bethought him of a case for the exercise of his high gift. It was to address a few neat lines to his recently-arrived neighbour at the Cottage, and ask him that day to dinner. To convert that gentleman’s polite attention in sending up to the Castle the pheasant he had shot by mistake, into an excuse for the liberty of inviting him without a previous exchange of visits, constituted exactly the amount of difficulty he could surmount. It was a low-wall, and he could leap it splendidly. It must be owned that he succeeded. His note was courteous without familiarity. It was a faint foreshadowing of the pleasure the writer had promised himself in the acquaintance of one so thoroughly imbued with the nicest notions of good breeding.

“I hope,” he wrote in conclusion, “you will not, by refusing me this honour, rebuke the liberty by which I have presumed to aspire to it;” and with this he signed himself, with every sense of his most distinguished consideration, “Within Wildrington Wardle.”

The reply was prompt—a most cordial acceptance. Sir Within scanned the terms of the note, the handwriting, the paper, the signature, and the seal. He was satisfied with everything. The writer was unquestionably a man of the world, and, in the old envoy’s estimation, that meant all, or nearly all, that one could desire in friend or acquaintance; one, in short, who knew how to subordinate passions, feelings, emotions, all selfishness, and all personal objects to the laws of a well-regulated conventionality; and who neither did, nor attempted to do, anything but what Society had done already, and declared might be done again.

How far Mr. George Grenfell realised this high estimate, it is not our purpose to inquire; we turn rather to what we are far more sure of, the delight with which he read Sir Within’s invitation.

Grenfell was well known about town to members of two or three good clubs, where he had a certain amount of influence with very young men. He was an excellent whist-player, and very useful on a wine committee; an admirable judge of a horse, though not remarkable as a rider. He knew everybody, but, somehow, he went nowhere. There were people—very good people, too, as the world calls them—would gladly have had his society at their tables in town, or in their houses at Christmas; but Grenfell saw that, if once launched amongst these, he must abandon all ambition of everything higher; extrication would be impossible; and so, with a self-denial which only a high purpose ever inspires, he refused invitations, here, and rejected advances, there, waiting on for the time when the great world would awaken to the conviction of his merits, and say, This is the very man we wanted!

Now, the great world was not so prompt in making this discovery as it might have been, and Mr. Grenfell was getting on in years, and not fully as hopeful as when his hair had been thicker and his beard bushier. He had begun, not exactly to sulk, but what the French call to “bouder”—a sort of male pouting—and he thought of going abroad, or going into Parliament, or doing something or other which would give him a new start in life; and it was to ruminate over these plans he had written to his friend Vyner, to say, “Let me, or lend me—I don’t care which—your Welsh Cottage for a month or two;” and by return of post came the answer, saying, “It is yours as long as you like it;” and thus was he there.

Sir Within’s note pleased him much. The old envoy was, it is true, a bygone, and a thing of the past: still he was one of those Brahmins whose priesthood always is accredited, and Grenfell knew, that to walk into the Travellers’ arm in arm with him, would be a great step in advance; for there was no set or knot of men so unapproachable by the outsiders, as that small clique of religionists who scourge themselves with red tape, and worship the great god “F. O.!”

“In asking for the Cottage,” Grenfell had said, “I should like to have an introduction of some sort to your quondam neighbour, Wardle, who, though too profligate for his neighbours, will not, I apprehend, endanger my morals. Let me have, therefore, a few lines to accredit me, as one likely to suit his humour.” To this Vyner replied, not very clearly: “The intimacy they had used to have with Sir Within had ceased; they held no correspondence now. It was a long story, and would not be worth the telling, nor very intelligible, perhaps, when told; but it was enough to say, that even should they meet now personally, it was by no means sure if they would recognise or address each other. You will use this knowledge for your guidance in case you ever come to know him, and which I hope you may, for he is a very delightful acquaintance, and full of those attentions which render a neighbourhood pleasant. I do not say so that you may repeat it; but simply as an admission of what is due—that I deeply regret our estrangement, though I am not certain that it was avoidable.” This, which Grenfell deemed somewhat contradictory, served, at all events, to show that he could not make Sir Within’s acquaintance through this channel, and he was overjoyed when another and a more direct opening presented itself.

“The hen pheasant I thought would do it,” muttered Grenfell, as he read the note. “A punster would say, I had shot up into his acquaintance.”