“What a snug place you have here; it’s as pretty as paint, too,” said Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle, as he lounged into the Cottage, a few minutes after the time named for dinner.

“It is not mine; I am only here on sufferance. It belongs to Sir Gervais Vyner,” said Grenfell.

“Not the Vyner who sat for Holstead?”

“The same.”

“And the man who bought Cloudsley’s yacht Carinthia, and then exchanged her for the Meteor, that won the Cowes cup two years ago?” continued Grenfell, who was watching the altered expression of the other’s face, as he learned that he was the guest of one so closely allied in intimacy with one of the leaders of fashion; for though the Ladarelles were rich people, and well placed in society, Vyner moved in a set, and associated with a class, quite apart from, and above them.

“I never met Vyner,” said Ladarelle, carelessly.

“He is the man I am most intimate with in the world. We chummed together at Cambridge, travelled together, and would have stood side by side in public life together, if I had not been too indolent to fag at official drudgery. But here comes dinner;” and taking his guest’s arm, he led him away literally captive—so completely was he overcome by the news that he was dining with the great Sir Gervais Vyner’s dearest friend and oldest companion.

Now, though the Ladarelles were not in that class to which Grenfell aspired, and with whom he hoped one day to see himself, they were on the direct road to it. They occupied what represented an intermediate territory, through which he must pass; and he set himself patiently to cultivate their good opinion—secretly cherishing the hope that a time would come when he could afford to be indifferent to it.

The dinner was exquisite; and young Ladarelle enjoyed, not alone the good cheer, but the freedom of being alone with one to whom he could talk without any reserve.

“You don’t half know what a charity you’ve done,” said he, “in asking me here to-day. That dreary old place was killing me. My governor is not what people call jolly. Old Sir Within is about the greatest prig I ever met; and as for the ward, she is either insufferably impertinent, or downright under bred.”

“She is exceedingly beautiful, however,” said Grenfell, smiling.

“At times—yes; I’ll not dispute that. But she has a something half supercilious, half silly, occasionally, that I don’t like. Do you think her clever?”

“I have no means of knowing.. I never met her till yesterday. Old Wardle declares that there never was her equal—that she learns whatever she likes, without any labour; but it’s easy enough to understand infatuation at his age, and he does seem to admire her vastly,” said Grenfell, slowly.

“I’d say the old fellow was madly in love with her, if the idea was not too absurd; not that it would be a laughing matter for me, though—very far from it.”

“How do you mean?”

“I told you last night, that if he were to marry, he can charge the estate with a settlement. But that’s not the whole of it. Sir Hugh Rivers says that, if he should have a direct heir! O, yes—it’s all very fine laughing; but the world has seen some such cases.”

“Very true,” said Grenfell; “and we all know what Lord Stowell said of them.”

“I know nothing about Lord Stowell; but I know this, that it’s no pleasant thing to think there’s a flaw in what one was once sure of. I used to fancy myself as much the owner of Dalradern as though Sir Within Wardle was only a tenant.”

“I scarcely think, if I was in your place, I’d fret myself about the contingency you speak of,” said Grenfell.

“I’ll not go so far as to say I fret about it. I don’t exactly do that; but it worries me in certain ways.”

“I understand,” said Grenfell; “it makes the Jews more difficult to deal with—more captious about post obits.”

“You have it exactly. That fellow Joel—I can’t imagine how he came at it—said to me, t’other day, ‘I don’t like my security, Mr. Dolly; it ain’t what I used to think it was.’ And what do you think I’m paying him all the time?”

“Ten—perhaps fifteen—per cent.”

“Guess again.”

“Twenty?—surely not more than twenty-five?”

“Forty—ay, forty per cent.! And when I was let in so heavily last May on ‘Grampus,’ I stood for the whole of Cloudsley’s lot, old Joel refused to renew under sixty per cent.! He even threatened he’d go up to Leadenhall-street and have a talk with my governor.” “Which might not have been pleasant.”

“I believe you. The governor has only to know that I’ve been betting in the ring to scratch my name out of the bank to-morrow, and cut me off root and branch. You haven’t an idea what these old ‘dons’ in the banking world think of what they call ‘the house.’ When my father speaks of ‘the house,’ he means something that represents the honour of all the Ladarelles—not alone since Adam, but the unborn partners that are to discount and keep deposits for centuries to come. Maybe you have not mixed with these sort of people?”

“Very little; but I have heard tell of their prejudices,” said Gren-fell, with the very faintest tinge of colour in his cheek as he spoke.

“That’s just what my governor is. After the bank comes the monarchy with him; so that you see I must be cautious.”

“I know something of Master Joel. It is rather his interest to stand well with me; and, if you like, I will just give him a gentle hint to keep quiet, and not create any disturbance.”

“Oh, would you? By Jove! I’ll take it as a great service to me. The fact is, I’ve been going it rather fast. Hawkshaw ‘let me in’ pretty heavily on ‘Caithness,’ and then Blunden, as you know, levanted; so that our last settling day was rather a dark morning to me.”

“Have you any other creditors than Joel?”

“Nothing very heavy. I owe Davis——”

“Grog?”

“Yes—Grog Davis. I owe him about two thousand; but he never presses. Grog’s a gentleman in that respect. It’s only when a fellow ‘hums’ and ‘hahs’ about whether the thing was all square or not; that’s what Grog won’t stand a moment. He’ll insist on his money then; and, what’s more, he’ll have a shot at you, too, if he can get it.”

“Yes, but he’ll have his money first. I never heard of Grog Davis shooting at a solvent debtor yet.”

“You know him, that’s plain enough,” said Dolly, laughing.

“Who could have been about town the last ten or fifteen years and not known him? I rather like him, too.”

“So do I,” cried Ladarelle, eagerly, and as though it relieved his heart of a weight to make the confession. “Say what they will of Grog Davis, he’s a fellow to do a right good-natured thing; and as for advice, there’s not a man in the clubs I’d as soon go to as to him.”

“He has a deal of worldly wit, that’s certain.”

“Ay, and he has more. He knows the exact way to treat every one. I’ve seen him go up and take the Duke of Dullworth by the arm just as familiarly as you’d take me.”

“Yes, when the Duke wanted him; he might do that.”

Dolly paused for some minutes, and seemed to reflect. He was, indeed, reflecting and considering with himself whether he would make a clean breast of it, and tell Grenfell all—everything that he had on his mind, and everything that he had done in consequence. At length, he appeared to have formed his decision; and, pushing his glass from before him, he leaned his arm on the table, and addressed Grenfell in a voice of most confidential meaning.

“I wrote to Grog since I came here,” said he, significantly. “I told him all about old Wardle, and as much as I could make out about his ward. It wasn’t much; but I added whatever I suspected, and I asked what he thought of it. He answered me by the same post.”

“And what did he say?” asked Grenfell, for the other had come to a dead stop.

“I only got the letter as I stepped into the carriage, and glanced my eye over it. Shall I read it for you? It’s very short.”

“Read it, then, by all means.”

“Here it is,” said he, producing a very square-shaped sheet of paper, with a large seal of coarse wax attached, evidence that it had not been encased in an envelope:

“‘Dear Dol! That’s his way, he’d be intimate with his Royal Highness. ‘Dear Dol, your note was writ like one of the queries to Bell’s Life, and in the same spirit I answer it. The old cove means to marry her——’ Eh, what?”

“I did not speak—go on.”

“‘The old cove means to marry her, and cut you out of the estate, just as Tom Barkely wag done by Rixley Drummond—only that Tom was offered the girl first, and wouldn’t have her.’”

“He’s all right there. Tom Barkely’s obstinacy cost him about sixteen thousand a year, and sent him out to India as a major in a marching regiment,” said Grenfell. “Go on.”

“‘This is my opinion,’ he puts two n’s to opinion, and it makes it read all the more stubborn, ‘and as for the remedy, Master Dolly, all I can say is, there ain’t two ways about it—there ain’t two ways about it,” repeated Ladarelle, slowly, and as though weighing each word as he uttered it. “Now, will you tell me, what does he mean by that?”

“Read it over again.”

“‘This is my opinion; and as for the remedy, Master Dolly, there ain’t too ways about it.—Yours, C. D.’”

Grenfell took the letter from the other’s hand, and pored over it in silence for several minutes; then, leisurely folding it, he laid it down on the table.

“How do you understand him?” asked Ladarelle again.

“It’s not very easy to understand what he says here; though, if the words had been spoken instead of written, I suspect I could have come at the meaning.”

“‘There ain’t two ways about it,’” repeated Dolly, moodily, “and why not say which is the one way? That would be more to the purpose.”

“It’s one of two things, evidently; either you are to get rid of Sir Within, or his ward. Grog is not a very scrupulous fellow; but though he would poison a horse he had laid heavily against for the Derby, I don’t think he’d go so far in the case of an old diplomatist. It remains then to be seen what is to be done with the ward; he probably means you should carry her off yourself.”

“Perhaps she wouldn’t come: if she has designs on Sir Within, it’s almost certain she would not.”

Grenfell made no answer, but sat lost in thought for some minutes, when he said: “Yes; that’s what Grog advises: his calculation is, that this old man’s infatuation, which, uninterfered with, would have led him into a foolish marriage, will, if it be crossed and thwarted, as certainly break him down and kill him.”

“Men don’t die of these things!”

“Not men like you and me, certainly; but there is a time of life when existence is held on a very frail tenure; and, at that time, a mere hope extinguished serves to crush vitality.”

“And do you really think he’d take it so much to heart?”

“I know too little of him to give an opinion. When I have seen him some half-dozen times more, and seen, besides, something of his manner towards her, I might risk a guess, perhaps.”

“If I was quite sure that I ‘stood in’ for the double event—that is, to stop her marriage and succeed to the estate at once—I almost think I’d do it.”

“‘Yes,” said Grenfell, after another pause, “this must be what Grog alludes to, as the one way of dealing with the matter.”

“She’d insist on marriage, I suppose?” said Dolly, in a sort of sulky tone.

“Of course she would.”

“That’s a bit of a bore. I had not calculated on such a step for these six or eight years yet. Then there’s another thing to be thought of: my governor, who naturally will not see the necessity of the step, is sure to be outrageous at it. All that he will recognise will be the very thing he most despises in the world—a love match.”

“Could he not be brought to see a much more valid reason for this match? Don’t you think the matter could be placed before him in such a light that he must accept that view?”

“No. I know him better. I could tell you at once what he’d say.” “And what would it be?”

“He’d say: If she must be got out of the way and married off, get some hard-up Sub who can’t pay his mess debts, or wants to lodge a few hundreds for the next vacancy; or find some Irish squire. My governor always thinks an Irishman is ready for anything but paying his debts. He’d marry her for a couple of thousand down. That’s what my governor would hit on, without taking five minutes to think of it.”

“What if she would not consent to such an arrangement?” “That’s as it might be. You’ll not find my governor giving any one credit for a strong will but himself. He reasons out every question his own way, and never suspects the mere possibility of opposition.”

“That may do in the bank, perhaps, where none can gainsay him.”

“He’ll tell you, it does just as well in the world at large; and he’ll point to himself as the best proof of the system.”

“I should like to hear your father discuss the question with the young lady herself; she, I take it, has a will of her own, also; and the matter would probably be well debated.” “She’d have no chance with my governor!”

“I’m not so sure of that. I have a suspicion that she could hold her own in an argument that touched her interest.”

“You know more of her than I do. She spoke to you, to me she barely condescended a few words. No more wine: thanks. I must be thinking of the road. I have got old Sir Within’s horses, and the coachman tells me they have never been out after sunset for the last four years, and if they get cold now it may cost him his place.”

“Why not come over and stop here, it might bore you less than yonder?”

“I should be delighted; I could ask nothing better; but I am supposed to be down here on business. My governor is not at all satisfied with the way things are going on. He says Sir Within has cut down too much timber, and he has taken renewals for leases he had no right to grant, and what with his tanks, and fish-ponds, and river-gods, he has left two mills without a drop of water.”

“Tell him, with my compliments, Sir Within Wardle will do worse than all these.”

“You mean about that girl?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what Grog says, but I dare not quote him to the governor. Tell me, would you have any objection to my telling him that this was your opinion?”

“I have not the honour of being known to your father, and a mere surmise of mine would carry no weight with it.”

“I don’t know that. I fancy he rather took a liking to you last night. What did you do at whist?”

“Lost a few half-crowns.”

“Ah, that accounts for it all! He said at breakfast this morning, that though you held only indifferent cards, you played with perfect composure, and it was quite a pleasure to play with you. With a few nights’ ill luck you’ll stand high in his favour, I promise you.”

“It is a cheap friendship after all,” said Grenfell, laughing.

“Yes. You may have it for five pounds, but I doubt greatly if you could re-sell it for as many shillings.”

“Make use of my favour, therefore, while it lasts, and if nothing prevent, come and dine here the day after to-morrow,” said Grenfell.

“Agreed. Here come the fat coach-horses; see how they heave their flanks, only coming round from the stable-yard. I tell you, Grenfell,” said he in a whisper, “there will be a great sale of stock at Dahradern one of these days; and there’s a lot I’ll certainly not give orders to have bought in. Good night—good night.”