But Sir Timothy had buttonholed him.  ’Of course it is late now to say anything further about that address.  We have arranged that.  Not quite as I would have wished, for I had set my heart upon initiating you into the rapturous pleasure of parliamentary debate.  But I hope that a good time is coming.  And pray remember this, Lord Silverbridge;—­there is no member sitting on our side of the House, and I need hardly say on the other, whom I would go farther to oblige than your father’s son.’

‘I’m sure that’s very kind,’ said Silverbridge, absolutely using a little force as he disengaged himself.  Then at once he followed the ladies upstairs passing the poet on the stairs.  ’You have hardly spoken to me,’ he whispered to Isabel.  He knew that to whisper to her now, with the eyes of so many upon him, with the ears of many open, was an absurdity; but he could not refrain himself.

’There are so many to be,—­entertained, as people say!  I don’t think I ought to have to entertain you,’ she answered, laughing.  No one heard her but Silverbridge, yet she did not seem to whisper.  She left him, however, at once, and was soon engaged in conversation with Sir Timothy.

A convivial lunch I hold to be altogether bad, but the worst of its many evils is that vacillating mind which does not know when to take its owner off.  Silverbridge was on this occasion determined not to take himself off at all.  As it was only lunch the people must go, and then he would be left with Isabel.  But the vacillation of the others was distressing to him.  Mr Lupton went, and poor Dolly got away apparently without a word.  But the Beeswaxes and the Gotobeds would not go, and the poet sat staring immovably.  In the meantime Silverbridge endeavoured to make the time pass lightly by talking to Mrs Boncassen.  He had been so determined to accept Isabel with all her adjuncts that he had come almost to like Mrs Boncassen, and would certainly have taken her part violently had anyone spoke ill of her in his presence.

Then suddenly he found that the room was almost empty.  The Beeswaxes and the Gotobeds were gone, and at last the poet himself, with a final glare of admiration at Isabel, had taken his departure.  When Silverbridge looked round, Isabel was also gone.  Then to Mrs Boncassen had left the room suddenly.  At the same instant Mr Boncassen entered by another door, and the two men were alone together.  ‘My dear Lord Silverbridge,’ said the father, ’I want to have a few words with you.’  Of course there was nothing for him but to submit.  ’You remember what you said to me down at Matching?’

‘Oh yes; I remember that.’

’You did me the great honour of expressing a wish to make my child your wife.’

‘I was asking for a very great favour.’

’That also;—­for there is no greater favour I could do to any man than to give him my daughter.  Nevertheless, you were doing me a great honour,—­and you did it, as you do everything, with an honest grace that went far to win my heart.  I am not at all surprised, sir, that you should have won hers.’  The young man as he heard this could only blush and look foolish.  ’If I know my girl, neither your money nor your title would go for anything.’