Arnold listened in blank amazement.  He had been the innocent means of relieving Sir Patrick’s mind of an accumulation of social protest, unprovided with an issue for some time past.  “How hot you are over it, Sir!” he exclaimed, in irrepressible astonishment.

Sir Patrick instantly recovered himself.  The genuine wonder expressed in the young man’s face was irresistible.

“Almost as hot,” he said, “as if I was cheering at a boat-race, or wrangling over a betting-book—­eh?  Ah, we were so easily heated when I was a young man!  Let’s change the subject.  I know nothing to the prejudice of your friend, Mr. Delamayn.  It’s the cant of the day,” cried Sir Patrick, relapsing again, “to take these physically-wholesome men for granted as being morally-wholesome men into the bargain.  Time will show whether the cant of the day is right.—­So you are actually coming back to Lady Lundie’s after a mere flying visit to your own property?  I repeat, that is a most extraordinary proceeding on the part of a landed gentleman like you.  What’s the attraction here—­eh?”

Before Arnold could reply Blanche called to him from the lawn.  His color rose, and he turned eagerly to go out.  Sir Patrick nodded his head with the air of a man who had been answered to his own entire satisfaction.  “Oh!” he said, “that’s the attraction, is it?”

Arnold’s life at sea had left him singularly ignorant of the ways of the world on shore.  Instead of taking the joke, he looked confused.  A deeper tinge of color reddened his dark cheeks.  “I didn’t say so,” he answered, a little irritably.

Sir Patrick lifted two of his white, wrinkled old fingers, and good-humoredly patted the young sailor on the cheek.

“Yes you did,” he said.  “In red letters.”

The little gold lid in the knob of the ivory cane flew up, and the old gentleman rewarded himself for that neat retort with a pinch of snuff.  At the same moment Blanche made her appearance on the scene.

“Mr. Brinkworth,” she said, “I shall want you directly.  Uncle, it’s your turn to play.”

“Bless my soul!” cried Sir Patrick, “I forgot the game.”  He looked about him, and saw his mallet and ball left waiting on the table.  “Where are the modern substitutes for conversation?  Oh, here they are!” He bowled the ball out before him on to the lawn, and tucked the mallet, as if it was an umbrella, under his arm.  “Who was the first mistaken person,” he said to himself, as he briskly hobbled out, “who discovered that human life was a serious thing?  Here am I, with one foot in the grave; and the most serious question before me at the present moment is, Shall I get through the Hoops?”

Arnold and Blanche were left together.