‘I wish there were any one else to spoil him!’

’For his sake, then, come and make Ormersfield cheerful.  It will be far better for him.’

‘And for you, to see more of Jem,’ she added.  ’If he were yours, what would you say to such hours?’

The last words were aimed at a young man who came briskly into the room, and as he kissed her, and shook hands with the Earl, answered in a quick, bright tone, ’Shocking, aye.  All owing to sitting up till one!’

‘Reading?’ said the Earl.

‘Reading,’ he answered, with a sort of laughing satisfaction in dashing aside the approval expressed in the query, ’but not quite as you suppose.  See here,’ as he held up maliciously a railway novel.

‘I am afraid I know where it came from,’ said Lord Ormersfield.

‘Exactly so,’ said James.  ’It was Fitzjocelyn’s desertion of it that excited my curiosity.’

’Indeed.  I should have thought his desertions far too common to excite any curiosity.’

‘By no means.  He always has a reason.’

‘A plausible one.’

‘More than plausible,’ cried James, excitement sparkling in his vivid black eyes.  ’It happens that this is the very book that you would most rejoice to see distasteful to him—­low morality, false principles, morbid excitement, not a line that ought to please a healthy mind.’—­

‘Yet it has interest enough for you.’

‘I am not Fitzjocelyn.’

‘You know how to plead for him.’

‘I speak simple truth,’ bluntly answered James, running his hand through his black hair, to the ruin of the morning smoothness, so that it, as well as the whole of his quick, dark countenance seemed to have undergone a change from sunny south to stormy north in the few moments since his first appearance.

After a short silence, Lord Ormersfield turned to him, saying ’I have been begging a favour of my aunt, and I have another to ask of you,’ and repeating his explanation, begged him to undertake the tutorship of his son.

‘I shall not be at liberty at Easter,’ said James, ’I have all but undertaken some men at Oxford.’

‘Oh, my dear Jem!’ exclaimed the old lady, ’is that settled beyond alteration?’

‘I’m not going to throw them over.’

‘Then I shall hope for you at Midsummer,’ said the Earl.

‘We shall see how things stand,’ he returned, ungraciously.

‘I shall write to you,’ said Lord Ormersfield, still undaunted, and soon after taking his leave.

‘Cool!’ cried James, as soon as he was gone.  ’To expect you to give up your school at his beck, to come and keep house for him as long as it may suit him!’

’Nay, Jem, he knew how few boys I have, and that I intended to give them up.  You don’t mean to refuse Louis?’ she said, imploringly.

’I shall certainly not take him at Easter.  It would be a mere farce intended to compensate to us for giving up the school, and I’ll not lend myself to it while I can have real work.’