At that moment Mr Boncassen entered the room, and was immediately appealed to his by his daughter.  ’Father, you must turn Lord Silverbridge out of the room.’

‘Dear me!  If I must,—­of course I must.  But why?’

‘He is saying everything horrid he can about Americans.’

After this they settled down for a few minutes to general conversation, and then Lord Silverbridge again took his leave.  When he was gone Isabel Boncassen almost regretted that the ‘something particular’ which he had threatened to say had not been less comic in its nature.

CHAPTER 34

Lord Popplecourt

When the reader was told that Lord Popplecourt had found Lady Cantrip very agreeable it is to be hoped that the reader was disgusted.  Lord Popplecourt would certainly not have given a second thought to Lady Cantrip unless he had been specifically flattered.  And why should such a man have been flattered by a woman who was in all respects his superior?  The reader will understand.  It had been settled by the wisdom of the elders that it would be a good thing that Lord Popplecourt should marry Lady Mary Palliser.

The mutual assent which leads to marriage should no doubt be spontaneous.  Who does not feel that?  Young love should speak from its first doubtful unconscious spark,—­a spark which any breath of air may quench or cherish,—­till it becomes a flame which nothing can satisfy but the union of two lovers.  No one should be told to love, or bidden to marry this man or that woman.  The theory of this is plain to us all, and till we have sons or daughters whom we feel imperatively obliged to control, the theory is unassailable.  But the duty is so imperative!  The Duke taught himself to believe that as his wife would have been thrown away on the world had she been allowed to marry Burgo Fitzgerald, so would his daughter be thrown away were she allowed to marry Mr Tregear.  Therefore the theory of spontaneous love must in this case be set aside.  Therefore the spark,—­would that it had been no more,—­must be quenched.  Therefore there could be no union of two lovers;—­but simply a prudent and perhaps a splendid marriage.

Lord Popplecourt was a man in possession of a large estate which was unencumbered.  His rank in the peerage was not high, but his barony was of an old date,—­and, if things went well with him, something higher in rank might be open to him.  He had good looks of that sort which recommend themselves to pastors and masters, to elders and betters.  He had regular features.  He looked as though he were steady.  He was not impatient or rollicking.  Silverbridge was also good-looking;—­but his good looks were such as would give a pang to the hearts of anxious mothers of daughters.  Tregear was the handsomest man of the three;—­but then he looked as though he had not betters and did not care for his elders.  Lord Popplecourt, though a very young man, had once stammered through half-a-dozen words in the House of Lords, and had been known to dine with the ‘Benevolent Funds’.  Lord Silverbridge had declared him to be a fool.  No one thought him to be bright.  But in the eyes of the Duke,—­and of Lady Cantrip,—­he had his good qualities.