“Well, George,” said the Squire dryly, “I’m glad you’ve come.  How you can stick in London at this time of year!  Now you’re down you’d better stay a couple of days.  I want to take you round the estate; you know nothing about anything.  I might die at any moment, for all you can tell.  Just make up your mind to stay.”

George gave him a moody look.

“Sorry,” he said; “I’ve got an engagement in town.”

Mr. Pendyce rose and stood with his back to the fire.

“That’s it,” he said:  “I ask you to do a simple thing for your own good—­and—­you’ve got an engagement.  It’s always like that, and your mother backs you up.  Bee, go and play me something.”

The Squire could not bear being played to, but it was the only command likely to be obeyed that came into his head.

The absence of guests made little difference to a ceremony esteemed at Worsted Skeynes the crowning blessing of the day.  The courses, however, were limited to seven, and champagne was not drunk.  The Squire drank a glass or so of claret, for, as he said, “My dear old father took his bottle of port every night of his life, and it never gave him a twinge.  If I were to go on at that rate it would kill me in a year.”

His daughters drank water.  Mrs. Pendyce, cherishing a secret preference for champagne, drank sparingly of a Spanish burgundy, procured for her by Mr. Pendyce at a very reasonable price, and corked between meals with a special cork.  She offered it to George.

“Try some of my burgundy, dear; it’s so nice.”

But George refused and asked for whisky-and-soda, glancing at the butler, who brought it in a very yellow state.

Under the influence of dinner the Squire recovered equanimity, though he still dwelt somewhat sadly on the future.

“You young fellows,” he said, with a friendly look at George, “are such individualists.  You make a business of enjoying yourselves.  With your piquet and your racing and your billiards and what not, you’ll be used up before you’re fifty.  You don’t let your imaginations work.  A green old age ought to be your ideal, instead of which it seems to be a green youth.  Ha!” Mr. Pendyce looked at his daughters till they said: 

“Oh, Father, how can you!”

Norah, who had the more character of the two, added: 

“Isn’t Father rather dreadful, Mother?”

But Mrs. Pendyce was looking at her son.  She had longed so many evenings to see him sitting there.

“We’ll have a game of piquet to-night, George.”

George looked up and nodded with a glum smile.