“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.”

“I think you’re quite under a delusion, in both respects,” observed Sir William.

“What makes you think that?”

“I have Edward’s word.”

“He lies as naturally as an infant sucks.”

“Pardon me; this is my son you are speaking of.”

“And this is your Port I’m drinking; so I’ll say no more.”

The squire emptied his glass, and Sir William thrummed on the table.

“Now, my dog has got his name,” the squire resumed.  “I’m not ambitious about him.  You are, about yours; and you ought to know him.  He spends or he don’t spend.  It’s not the question whether he gets into debt, but whether he does mischief with what he spends.  If Algy’s a bad fish, Ned’s a bit of a serpent; damned clever, no doubt.  I suppose, you wouldn’t let him marry old Fleming’s daughter, now, if he wanted to?”

“Who is Fleming?” Sir William thundered out.

“Fleming’s the father of the girl.  I’m sorry for him.  He sells his farm-land which I’ve been looking at for years; so I profit by it; but I don’t like to see a man like that broken up.  Algy, I said before, ’s a bad fish.  Hang me, if I think he’d have behaved like Ned.  If he had, I’d have compelled him to marry her, and shipped them both off, clean out of the country, to try their luck elsewhere.