Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 04 eBook

“Yes, but I did not ask him till ten o’clock.  I asked you at half-past nine, because I wished to hear about Danvers and Saxboro’, and also to prepare you somewhat for your introduction to your cousin.  I must be brief as to the last, for it is only five minutes to the hour, and he is a man likely to be punctual.  Kenelm is in all ways your opposite.  I don’t know whether he is cleverer or less clever; there is no scale of measurement between you:  but he is wholly void of ambition, and might possibly assist yours.  He can do what he likes with Sir Peter; and considering how your poor father—­a worthy man, but cantankerous—­harassed and persecuted Sir Peter, because Kenelm came between the estate and you, it is probable that Sir Peter bears you a grudge, though Kenelm declares him incapable of it; and it would be well if you could annul that grudge in the father by conciliating the goodwill of the son.”

“I should be glad so to annul it; but what is Kenelm’s weak side?—­the turf? the hunting-field? women? poetry?  One can only conciliate a man by getting on his weak side.”

“Hist!  I see him from the windows.  Kenelm’s weak side was, when I knew him some years ago, and I rather fancy it still is—­”

“Well, make haste!  I hear his ring at your door-bell.”

“A passionate longing to find ideal truth in real life.”

“Ah!” said Gordon, “as I thought,—­a mere dreamer”

CHAPTER V.

Kenelm entered the room.  The young cousins were introduced, shook hands, receded a step, and gazed at each other.  It is scarcely possible to conceive a greater contrast outwardly than that between the two Chillingly representatives of the rising generation.  Each was silently impressed by the sense of that contrast.  Each felt that the contrast implied antagonism, and that if they two met in the same arena it must be as rival combatants; still, by some mysterious intuition, each felt a certain respect for the other, each divined in the other a power that he could not fairly estimate, but against which his own power would be strongly tasked to contend.  So might exchange looks a thorough-bred deer-hound and a half-bred mastiff:  the bystander could scarcely doubt which was the nobler animal; but he might hesitate which to bet on, if the two came to deadly quarrel.  Meanwhile the thorough-bred deer-hound and the half-bred mastiff sniffed at each other in polite salutation.  Gordon was the first to give tongue.

“I have long wished to know you personally,” said he, throwing into his voice and manner that delicate kind of deference which a well-born cadet owes to the destined head of his house.  “I cannot conceive how I missed you last night at Lady Beaumanoir’s, where Mivers tells me he met you; but I left early,”