’No, I wouldn’t. Tifto is not all
a pleasant companion, though he understands horses.
You’re going in for heavy politics, I suppose.’
‘Not particularly heavy.’
’If not, why on earth does the governor take
you up? You won’t mind my smoking I dare
say.’ After this there was no conversation
between them.
‘Don’t You Think-?’
It was pretty to see the Duke’s reception of
Lady Mabel. ’I knew your mother many years
ago,’ he said, ’when I was young myself.
Her mother and my mother were first cousins and dear
friends.’ He held her hand as he spoke
and looked at her as though he meant to love her.
Lady Mabel saw that it was so. could it be possible
that the Duke had heard anything;—that
he should wish to receive her? She had told herself
and had told Miss Cassewary that though she had spared
Silverbridge, yet she knew that she would make him
a good wife. If the Duke thought so also, then
surely she need not doubt.
‘I knew we were cousins,’ she said, ’and
have been so proud of the connection! Lord Silverbridge
does come and see us sometimes.’
Soon after that Silverbridge and Popplecourt came
in. If the story of the old woman in the portrait
may be taken as evidence of a family connection between
Lady Cantrip and Lord Popplecourt, everybody there
was more or less connected with everybody else.
Nidderdale had been a first cousin of Lady Glencora,
and he had married a daughter of Lady Cantrip.
They were manifestly a family party,—thanks
to the old woman in the picture.
It is a point of conscience among the—perhaps
not ten thousand, but say one thousand of bluest blood,—that
everybody should know who everybody is. Our Duke,
though he had not given his mind much to the pursuit,
had nevertheless learned his lesson. It is a
knowledge which the possession of the blue blood itself
produces. There are countries with bluer blood
than our own in which to be without such knowledge
is a crime.
When the old lady in the portrait had been discussed,
Popplecourt was close to Lady Mary. They two
had no idea why such vicinity had been planned.
The Duke knew of course, and Lady Cantrip. Lady
Cantrip had whispered to her daughter that such a marriage
would be suitable, and the daughter had hinted it
to her husband. Lord Cantrip of course was not
in the dark. Lady Mabel had expressed a hint
on the matter to Miss Cass, who had not repudiated
it. Even Silverbridge had suggested to himself
that something of the kind might be in the wind, thinking
that, if so, none of them knew very much about his
sister Mary. But Popplecourt himself was divinely
innocent. His ideas of marriage had as yet gone
no farther than a conviction that girls generally
were things which would be pressed on him, and against
which he must arm himself with some shield. Marriage
would have to come, no doubt, but not the less was
it his duty to live as though it were a pit towards
which he would be tempted by female allurements.
But that a net should be spread over him here he was
much too humble-minded to imagine.
