Next morning came the usual short impatient scrawl on thin blue paper from Edward, scarce worthy of a passing thought.  In a postscript, he asked:  “Are there, on your oath, no letters for me?  If there are, send them immediately—­every one, bills as well.  Don’t fail.  I must have them.”

Algernon was at last persuaded to pack up Dahlia’s letters, saying:  “I suppose they can’t do any harm now.”  The expense of the postage afflicted him; but “women always cost a dozen to our one,” he remarked.  On his way to the City, he had to decide whether he would go to the Bank, or take the train leading to Wrexby.  He chose the latter course, until, feeling that he was about to embark in a serious undertaking, he said to himself, “No! duty first;” and postponed the expedition for the day following.

CHAPTER XXXII

Squire Blancove, having business in town, called on his brother at the Bank, asking whether Sir William was at home, with sarcastic emphasis on the title, which smelt to him of commerce.  Sir William invited him to dine and sleep at his house that night.

“You will meet Mrs. Lovell, and a Major Waring, a friend of hers, who knew her and her husband in India,” said the baronet.

“The deuce I shall,” said the squire, and accepted maliciously.

Where the squire dined, he drank, defying ladies and the new-fangled subserviency to those flustering teabodies.  This was understood; so, when the Claret and Port had made a few rounds, Major Waring was permitted to follow Mrs. Lovell, and the squire and his brother settled to conversation; beginning upon gout.  Sir William had recently had a touch of the family complaint, and spoke of it in terms which gave the squire some fraternal sentiment.  From that, they fell to talking politics, and differed.  The breach was healed by a divergence to their sons.  The squire knew his own to be a scamp.

“You’ll never do anything with him,” he said.

“I don’t think I shall,” Sir William admitted.

“Didn’t I tell you so?”

“You did.  But, the point is, what will you do with him?”

“Send him to Jericho to ride wild jackasses.  That’s all he’s fit for.”

The superior complacency of Sir William’s smile caught the squire’s attention.

“What do you mean to do with Ned?” he asked.

“I hope,” was the answer, “to have him married before the year is out.”

“To the widow?”

“The widow?” Sir William raised his eyebrows.

“Mrs. Lovell, I mean.”

“What gives you that idea?”

“Why, Ned has made her an offer.  Don’t you know that?”

“I know nothing of the sort.”

“And don’t believe it?  He has.  He’s only waiting now, over there in Paris, to get comfortably out of a scrape—­you remember what I told you at Fairly—­and then Mrs. Lovell’s going to have him—­as he thinks; but, by George, it strikes me this major you’ve got here, knows how to follow petticoats and get in his harvest in the enemy’s absence.”