The Quiet Gentleman

The Dowager, snatching at this straw, bestowed one of her most gracious smiles upon her, and gave the assembled company to understand that under these conditions she might be induced to sink her personal inclinations in a benevolent desire to oblige her stepson. After that, she entered in a very exhaustive way, which lent no colour to her previous assertion that she was in failing health, into all the preparations it would be necessary to make for the ball. Long before dinner was at an end, she had talked herself into good-humour; and by the time she rose from the table she had reached the felicitous stage of saying how happy she would be to welcome the dear Duchess of Rutland to Stanyon, and how happy a number of persons of quite inferior rank would be to find themselves at Stanyon.

While the inevitable card-table was being set up in the Italian Saloon, the Earl found himself standing beside Miss Morville, a little withdrawn from the rest of the party. He could not resist saying to her, with an arch lift of his brows: "I have incurred your censure, ma'am?"

She seemed surprised. "No, how should you? Oh, you mean that most ill-advised remark you made! Well, I must say, it was the outside of enough! However, it is not my business to be censuring you, my lord, and if I seemed to do so I have only to beg pardon."

"Don't, I entreat! I will own my fault. Shall you dislike my ball?"

"Dislike it! No, indeed! I daresay I shall enjoy it excessively."

"I am afraid you will be put to a great deal of trouble over it."

He expected a polite disclaimer, but she replied, candidly: "I shall, of course, because whatever I suggest Lady St. Erth will not like, until she has been brought to believe that she thought of it herself. I wish very much that she would let me contrive the whole, for there is nothing I should like better. But that would be rather too much to expect her to do, and one should never be unreasonable!"

"You would like nothing better than to order all the arrangements for a large party? I can conceive of nothing more tiresome!"

"Very likely you might not, for I think gentlemen do not excel at such things." She looked across the room, to where Martin was discussing with his mother the various families it would be proper to invite to the ball. "I expect he will ask her particularly to send a card to the Bolderwoods," she said sagely. "If I were you, I would not mention to her that you wish them to be invited, for it will only put up her back, if you do, and you may depend upon Martin's good offices in that cause."

"May I ask, ma'am," he said, a trifle frigidly, "why you should suppose that I wish to invite the Bolderwoods?"

She raised her eyes to his face, in one of her clear, enquiring looks. "Don't you? I quite thought that it must have been Marianne who had put the notion of a ball into your head, since you were visiting at Whissenhurst this morning."

He hardly knew whether to be amused or angry. "Upon my word, Miss Morville! It seems that my movements are pretty closely watched!"

"I expect you will have to accustom yourself to that," she returned. "Everything you do must be of interest to your people, you know. In this instance, you could not hope to keep your visit secret (though I cannot imagine why you should wish to do so!), for your coachman's second granddaughter is employed at the Grange."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, and she has give such satisfaction that they mean to take her to London with them next month, which is a very gratifying circumstance." She fixed her eyes on his face again, and asked disconcertingly: "Have you fallen in love with Miss Bolderwood?"

"Certainly not!" he replied, in a tone nicely calculated to depress pretension.

"Oh! Most gentlemen do—on sight!" she remarked. "One cannot wonder at it, for I am sure she must be the prettiest girl imaginable. I have often reflected that it must be very agreeable to be beautiful. Mama considers that it is of more importance to have an informed mind, but I must own that I cannot agree with her."

At this moment the Dowager called to Gervase to come to the card-table. He declined it, saying that he had letters which must be written, upon which Miss Morville was applied to. She went at once; and Martin, after fidgeting about the room for a few minutes, drew near to his brother, and said awkwardly: "You know, I didn't mean it! That is—I beg your pardon, but—but it was you who made me fight on! And it would have been the sheerest good luck if I had pinked you!"

Gervase was in the act of raising a pinch of snuff to one nostril, but he paused. "You are very frank!" he remarked.

"Frank? Oh—! Well, of course I didn't mean—what I meant was that it would only be by some accident, or if you were careless, or—or something of that nature!"

"I see. I was evidently quite mistaken, for I formed the opinion that you had the very definite intention of running me through."

"You made me as mad as fire!" Martin muttered, his eyes downcast, and his cheeks reddened.