"You look rather serious, oh, my prince!" said Howard, as, some few hours later, he leisurely climbed into the phaeton beside Stafford. "I have noticed with inward satisfaction that as we approach the moment of meeting with your puissant parent, the Sultan, an air of gravity and soberness has clouded that confoundedly careless, devil-may-care countenance of yours. I say with inward satisfaction, because, with my usual candour, I don"t mind admitting that I am shivering in my shoes.
The shadow of the august presence is already falling on me, and as the hour draws near I feel my littleness, my utter insignificance, with an acuteness which almost compels me to ask you to let me get down and make my way back to London as best I can."
"Don"t be an a.s.s," retorted Stafford, rather absently.
"You ask an impossibility of me, my dear fellow; but I will try and conceal my asininity as best I can. May I ask, to change the subject, where you were wandering all the morning?"
Stafford coloured slightly and bestowed minute attention to the off horse.
"Oh, just prowling round," he replied, leisurely.
"You tempt me to finish the quotation. Did you find anyone to devour?
Apropos, has his majesty, the Sultan, ever mentioned matrimony to you, Staff?"
Stafford looked round at him for an instant.
"No," he said, curtly. "What the devil made you ask?"
"Merely my incessant speculation as to your future, my dear fellow,"
replied Howard, blandly. "Most fathers are ambitious for their sons, and I should imagine that Sir Stephen would be extremely so. When a man is simply a plain "Mr.," he longs for the "Sir;" when he gets the "Sir," he wants the "my Lord" for himself, or for his son and heir.
That is the worst of ambition: you can"t satisfy it. I have no doubt in my mind that at this very moment Sir Stephen is making for a peerage for himself--or you. He can possibly gain his; but you, having no brains to speak of--the fact that good-looking men are always deficient in that respect is a continual and blessed consolation to us plain ones, Staff--will have to make what the world calls a "good marriage."
Doubtless your father already has the future bride in his eye; the daughter of a peer--high in the government, perhaps in the cabinet--probably. Probably that is why he has asked you to meet him here. I hope, for your sake, that she is good-looking. I fancy"--musingly--"that you would be rather particular. If rumour does you no injustice, you always have been."
Stafford laughed shortly.
"I"ve never thought about marrying," he said, rather absently.
"No one does, my dear fellow. It comes, like measles and other unpleasant things, without thought; and when it comes, it is generally as unpleasant. Aren"t we going at a tremendous rate, Stafford? Don"t think I am nervous; I have ridden beside you too often for that. You destroyed what nerve I possessed long ago."
"We are late, and it"s farther round than I thought," said Stafford.
"The horses are fresh."
"I daresay; very probably Pottinger has given them a double feed; he would naturally like them to dash up in fine style. But if it"s all the same to you"--as the horses broke into a gallop--"I should prefer to arrive at your father"s "little place" in a more dignified fashion than on a stretcher."
Stafford smiled and checked the high-spirited pair.
"You talk of women as if they were a--a kind of plague; you were never in love, Howard?" he asked.
"Never, thank Heaven!" responded Howard, devoutly. "When I think of it, I acknowledge that I have much to be thankful for. I was once: she was a girl with dark eyes--but I will spare you a minute description. I met her in a country rectory--_is_ that horse, I think you call it the near one--going to jump over the bank? And one remarkably fine evening--it was moonlight, I remember--I was on the point of declaring my love; and then the G.o.ds saved me. The thought flashed upon me that, if she said "yes," I should have to sit opposite her at dinner for the rest of one of our lives. It saved me. I said that I thought it was chilly, and went in and up to bed, grateful for my escape. Why don"t you laugh?"
Stafford only smiled in a perfunctory fashion. He was thinking of the girl he had watched riding off on the unbroken colt; of what it would seem like if she were seated opposite him, with the candle-light falling on her soft white dress, with diamonds gleaming in it, diamonds outshone by the splendour of those dark, violet-grey eyes; of what it would seem like if he could rise from his seat and go to her and take her in his arms and look into those dark grey eyes, and say, "You are mine, mine!" with no one to say him nay.
"It was a lucky escape for her," he said, dreamily.
"It was," a.s.sented Howard, solemnly. "Not one man in a thousand can love one woman all his life; and I"ve the strongest conviction that I am not that one. In less than six months I should have grown tired of her--in less than a year I should have flown from the joys of matrimony--or killed the partner of those joys. Has Pottinger a wife and family, my dear Stafford? If so, is it wise to risk his life in this fashion? I don"t care for myself--though still young, I am not afraid to die, and I would as soon meet it hurled from a phaeton as not--but may I beg of you to think of Pottinger?"
Stafford laughed.
"The horses are all right," he said. "They are only fresh, and want to go."
He could not have driven slowly, for his mind, dwelling on the girl in the well-worn habit, was electric.
"I have spared you, hitherto, any laudation of the scenery, my dear Staff," said Howard, pleasantly, "but permit me to remark that it really is very beautiful. Trust the great and powerful Sir Stephen to choose the best nature and art can produce! What is this?"
"This" proved to be a newly built lodge which appeared on the left of the road. Stafford slowed up, and a lodgekeeper came and flung open the new and elaborately wrought iron gates.
"This the way to--to Sir Stephen"s house?" asked Stafford.
The man touched his hat reverentially.
"Yes, sir," he replied. "Sir Stephen"s arrived. Came an hour ago."
Stafford nodded, and drove on.
The road was certainly a new one, but it was lined with rhododendrons and costly shrubs, and it wound and wound serpentine fashion through shrubberies and miniature plantations which indicated not only remarkably good taste, but vast expenditure. At intervals the trees had been felled to permit a view of the lake, lying below, like a sapphire glowing in the sunlight.
Presently they came in sight of the house. It was larger than it had looked in the distance; a veritable palace. An architect had received _carte-blanche_, and disporting himself right royally, had designed a facade which it would be hard to beat: at any rate, in England.
Stafford eyed it rather grumpily. Most Englishmen dislike ostentation and display; and to Stafford the place seemed garish and "loud." Howard surveyed it with cynical admiration.
"A dream of Kubla Kahn--don"t know whether I"ve got the name right: poem of Coleridge"s, you know--but of course you don"t know; you don"t go in for poetry. Well I"m bound to admit that it"s striking, not to say beautiful," he went on, as the horses sprang up the last ascent and rattled on in an impatient, high-spirited trot along the level road to the terrace fronting the entrance.
As Stafford pulled up, a couple of grooms came forward; the hall door--enamelled in peac.o.c.k blue--opened and a butler and two footmen in rich maroon livery appeared. They came down the white marble steps in stately fashion and ranged themselves as if the ceremony were of vast importance, and as Howard and Stafford got down they bowed with the air of attendants receiving royalty.
As Stafford, flinging the reins to one of the grooms, got down, he caught sight of a line of liveried servants in the hall, and he frowned slightly.
Like most young Englishmen, he hated ostentation, which he designated as "fuss."
"Rub "em down well, Pottinger," he said, and he leisurely patted the horses while the gorgeous footmen watched with solemn impressiveness.
"We"ve brought "em along pretty well," he said, turning to Howard, who stood beside him with a fine and cynical smile; then he went up the white marble steps slowly, carefully ignoring the footmen who had drawn themselves into a line as if they were a guard of honour, specially drilled to receive him.
Followed by Howard, his cynical smile still lingering about his thin lips, Stafford entered the hall.
It was Oriental in shape and design, with a marble fountain in the centre, and carved arches before the various pa.s.sages. The princ.i.p.al staircase was also of white marble with an Indian carpet of vivid crimson. Palms reared their tall and graceful heads at intervals, shading statuary in the prevailing white marble. Hangings of rose colour broke the sameness and accentuated the purity of the predominate whiteness.
Howard looked round with an admiration which obliterated his usual cynicism.
"Beautiful!" he murmured.
But Stafford frowned. The luxury, the richness of the place, though chaste, jarred on him; why, he could not have told.
Suddenly, as they were making their way through the lines of richly liveried servants, a curtain at one of the openings was thrown aside, and a gentleman came out to meet them.
He was rather a tall man, with white hair, but with eyebrows and moustache of jet-black. His eyes were brilliant but sharp, and he moved with the ease and alertness of youth.
There was something in his face, in its expression, which indicated strength and power; something in his manner, in his smile, peculiarly electric and sympathetic.
Howard stopped and drew back, but Stafford advanced, and Sir Stephen caught him by the hand and held it.