Lord Silverbridge sat in the House,—­or to speak more accurately, in the smoking-room of the House—­for about an hour thinking over all that had passed between him and his father.  He certainly had not intended to say anything about Lady Mab, but on the spur of the moment it had all come out.  Now at any rate it was decided for him that he must, in set terms, ask her to be his wife.  The scene which had just occurred had made him thoroughly sick of Major Tifto.  He must get rid of the Major, and there could be no way of doing this at once so easy and so little open to observation as marriage.  If he were but once engaged to Mabel Grex the dismissal of Tifto would be quite a matter of course.  He would see Lady Mabel again on the morrow and ask her in direct language to be his wife.

CHAPTER 28

Mrs Montacute Jones’s Garden-Party

It was known to all the world that Mrs Montacute Jones’s first great garden-party was to come off on Wednesday, the sixteenth of June, at Roehampton.  Mrs Montacute Jones, who lived in Grosvenor Place and had a country house in Gloucestershire, and a place for young men to shoot at in Scotland, also kept a suburban elysium in Roehampton, in order that she might give two garden-parties every year.  When it is said that all these costly luxuries appertained to Mrs Montacute Jones, it is to be understood that they did in truth belong to Mr Jones, of whom nobody heard much.  But of Mrs Jones,—­that is, Mrs Montacute Jones,—­everybody heard a great deal.  She was an old lady who devoted her life to the amusement of—­not only her friends, but very many who were not her friends.  No doubt she was fond of Lords and Countesses, and worked very hard to get round her all the rank and fashion of the day.  It must be acknowledged that she was a worldly old woman.  But no more good-natured old woman lived in London, and everybody liked to be asked to her garden-parties.  On this occasion there was to be a considerable infusion of royal blood,—­German, Belgian, French, Spanish, and of native growth.  Everybody, who was asked would go, and everybody had been asked,—­who was anybody.  Lord Silverbridge had been asked, and Lord Silverbridge intended to be there.  Lady Mary his sister, could even be asked, because her mother was hardly more than three months dead; but it is understood in the world that women mourn longer than men.

Silverbridge had mounted a private hansom cab in which he could be taken about rapidly,—­and, as he said himself, without being shut up in a coffin.  In this vehicle he had himself taken to Roehampton, purporting to kill two birds with one stone.  He had not as yet seen his sister since she had been with Lady Cantrip.  He would on this day come back by the Horns.

He was well aware that Lady Mab would be at the garden-party.  What place could be better for putting the question he had to ask!  He was by no means so confident as the heir to so many good things might perhaps have been without overdue self-confidence.