The Quiet Gentleman

Theo uttered a short laugh. "Don't disturb yourself! I might as well aspire to the hand of a Royal Princess!" He shut the sword-case, and turned. "Come! If General Hawkhurst has honoured you with a visit, you had better make yourself a little more presentable."

"Very true: I will do so at once!" Gervase said, rather glad to be relieved of the necessity of answering his cousin's embittered words. From the little he had seen of both, he could not but feel that the staid Drusilla would make a more suitable bride for Theo than the livelier and by far more frivolous Marianne; he must, moreover, have been obliged to agree that there could be little hope that Sir Thomas would bestow his only child on a man in Theo's circumstances.

He did not again see Martin until they met at the dinner-table. There was then a little constraint in Martin's manner, but since he was so much a creature of moods this caused his mother no concern. Her mind was, in fact, preoccupied with the startling request made to her by her stepson, that she should send out cards of invitation for a ball at Stanyon. Since her disposition generally led her to dislike any scheme not of her own making, her first reaction was to announce with an air of majestic finality that it was not to be thought of; but when the Earl said apologetically that he was afraid some thought would have to be spent on the project, unless a party quite unworthy of the traditions of Stanyon were to be the result, she began to perceive that his mind was made up. An uneasy suspicion, which had every now and then flitted through her head since the episode of the Indian epergne, again made itself felt: her stepson, for all his gentle voice and sweet smile, was not easily to be intimidated. From her first flat veto, she passed to the enumeration of all the difficulties in the way of holding a ball at Stanyon at that season of the year. She was still expatiating on the subject when she took her place at the foot of the dinner-table. "Had it been Christmas, it might have been proper for us to have done something of that nature," she said.

"Hardly, ma'am!" said Gervase, in a deprecating tone. "You had not then, I am persuaded, put off your blacks."

This was unanswerable; and while she was thinking of some further objection, Martin, who had not been present when the scheme was first mooted, demanded to be told what was going forward. When it was made known to him, he could not dislike the project. His eyes brightened; he turned them towards Gervase, exclaiming: "I call that a famous notion! We have not had such an affair at Stanyon since I don't know when! When is it to be?"

"I have been explaining to your brother," said the Dowager, "that a ball held in the country at this season cannot be thought to be eligible."

"Oh, fudge, Mama! No one removes to town until April—no one we need care for, at least! I daresay we could muster as many as fifty couples—well, twenty-five, at all events! and that don't include all the old frights who will come only to play whist!"

"I fear that my state of health would be quite unequal to entertaining so many persons," said the Dowager, making a determined bid for mastery.

As she had never been known to suffer even the most trifling indisposition, this announcement not unnaturally staggered her son. Before he could expostulate, however, Gervase said solicitously: "I would not for the world prejudice your health, ma'am! To be sure, to expect you to receive and to contrive for so many people would be an infamous thing for me to do! But I have been considering, you know, whether, if I sent my own chaise to convey her, my Aunt Dorothea might not be prevailed upon to drive over from Studham, to relieve you of those duties which might prove too much for your strength. I daresay, if we invited her to stay at Stanyon for a week or so, she would not altogether object to it."

There was a pregnant silence. Theo's firm lips twitched; the Chaplain gazed in deep absorption at the bowl of spring flowers which had replaced the epergne in the centre of the table; and Martin directed a glance of awe, not untinged with respect, at the Earl. Only Miss Morville continued to eat her dinner in complete unconcern.

"Lady Cinderfold," said the Dowager, referring to her widowed sister-in-law in accents of loathing, "will act as hostess at Stanyon over my dead body!"

"That would be something quite out of the ordinary way," murmured the Earl.

Miss Morville raised her eyes from the portion of fricandeau of beef on her plate, and directed a quelling look at him. She then turned her attention to her hostess, saying: "Should you find it too much for you, ma'am, if I were to write all the invitations for you, and, in general, undertake the arrangements?"