"Mr. Scott, will you take my daughter to the table?" said the banker, as he gave his own arm to Lady Belgrade.
It was an elegant little dinner for four, arranged upon a round table.
There was no possibility of estrangement, in so small a party as that.
Sir Lemuel talked gayly, and without effort, for he was very happy. Lady Belgrade chattered, because she was spiritually a magpie. And as both constantly appealed to "Mr. Scott," or to Salome, it was impossible for either of the lovers to relapse into awkward silence. The conversation was general and lively.
Sir Lemuel Levison and Lady Belgrade would have talked in the most flattering manner of "Mr. Scott"s" leaders, if that young gentleman had not laughingly waived off all such direct compliments.
When dinner was over, Lady Belgrade gave the signal, and arose from the table. Salome followed her, and left the two gentlemen to their wine.
"It afflicts me to have to call you Mr. Scott, my lord," said Sir Lemuel, when he found himself alone with his guest.
"Then call me John, as you used to do when I rode upon your foot in my childhood, and when I used to come to you in all my worst sc.r.a.pes in boyhood--I shall never resume my t.i.tle, Sir Lemuel," replied the young man.
"Never!" exclaimed the banker.
"Never, Sir Lemuel. A pauper lord is rather a ridiculous object. I will never be one."
"You _could_ not be one. I won"t hear you say such things about yourself. See here, John. Do you know why I bought Lone when I knew it was to be sold?"
"I suppose because you wanted it."
"Now what did I want with Lone? I, an old widower, without family, except one little girl at school? I did not want Lone. I wanted you to have it.
But I knew that if I did not buy it some one else would. And--I had this only daughter, who would have Lone after me. And I thought perhaps--But then you disappeared, you know, and no one on earth could tell for three years what had become of you, when you suddenly turned up as Mr. John Scott at the Premier"s dinner."
The banker paused, and ran his hand through his gray hair.
The young man looked at him with curiosity and interest.
"Plague take it all! her mother, if she has one, could manage this matter so much better than I can," muttered the banker, as he poured out a gla.s.s of wine and drank it. "Well, Lord Arondelle--I will give myself the pleasure of calling you so while we are _tete-a-tete_ "over the walnuts and wine." Lord Arondelle, there is my daughter; what do you think of her?" he demanded, bending down his gray brows and fixing his keen blue eyes scrutinizingly upon the young man"s face which flushed at the suddenness of the question. But he quickly recovered himself, and replied in a low, reverent tone:
"I think Miss Levison the loveliest young creature I have ever had the happiness to know."
"You do! So do _I_! I think so too. And the man who gets my girl to wife will get a pearl of price."
"I truly believe that," said the young man, with an involuntary sigh.
"That is right! Ahem! Bother it! a woman could do this so much better than such a blundering old fellow as I! Well, there! Salome has, in the three years since her first entrance into society, refused half a score of eligible men. She is, and always has been, perfectly free from any such engagement. If you are equally free, my dear marquis--(If I could only be her mother for three seconds)--Ahem! if you are equally free, and if you admire my girl as you say you do, and if you can win her affections--she--she shall be yours, and I will settle Lone upon her.
There, her mother would have done this better, I know. So much better that you would have proposed to my daughter without ever dreaming that the suggestion came from our side. But as for me, I have flung my girl at your head, nothing less!" grumbled the banker.
"My dear Sir Lemuel," said the young man, with some emotion, as he left his seat and came and stood by the banker"s chair, leaning affectionately over him; "when I first met your lovely daughter, I was so deeply impressed by her rare sweetness, gentleness, intelligence--ah! Heaven knows what it was! It was something more than all these. In a word, I was so deeply impressed by her perfect loveliness, that had I been as really the heir of Lone as I was the Marquis of Arondelle, I should at once have cultivated her further acquaintance, and, before this, have laid my heart and hand, t.i.tles and estates, at her feet."
"Well, well, my boy? Well, my dear lad, why didn"t you do it?" inquired the banker, with tears rising to his kind eyes.
"I have just told you, because I was a ruined man," said the marquis with mournful dignity.
""A ruined man?"" echoed the banker, with almost angry earnestness.
"_I_ know that you are _not_ a ruined man! And you know, even better than I do, because you have more brains than I have; YOU know that no young man, sound in body and sound in mind, can be ruined by any financial calamity that can fall upon him. You love my daughter, you say. Well, then, you have my authority to ask her to be your wife.
There, what do you say?"
The young marquis sat down and covered his face with his hand for one thoughtful moment, and then replied:
"This is a happiness so unexpected that it seems unreal. Sir Lemuel, do you really appreciate the fact that I am a man without a shilling that I do not earn by my labor?"
"I really appreciate the fact, and most highly appreciate the fact that you are Marquis of Arondelle, and to be Duke of Hereward--and that you are personally as n.o.ble in nature as you are fortunately n.o.ble in descent. And although my first motive in favoring this marriage is the pure desire for yours and for my daughter"s happiness, still I a.s.sure you, my lord, I am keenly alive to its eligibility in a mere worldly point of view. Your ancient historical t.i.tle is, (to speak as a man of the world,) much more than an equivalent for my daughter"s expectations.
But it is not, as I said before, as a highly eligible, conventional marriage that I most desire it, but as a marriage that I feel sure will secure the happiness of yourself and my daughter, whom I shall, nevertheless, be very proud to see, some day, d.u.c.h.ess of Hereward.
Come, now, I never saw a gallant young man hesitate so long. I shall grow angry presently."
"Sir Lemuel," said the marquis, with some irrepressible emotion, "were I now really the Duke of Hereward, and the owner of Lone, and were your lovely daughter as dowerless as I am penniless at this moment, and did you give her to me, my deepest grat.i.tude would be due you, and you have it now. When may I see Miss Levison and put my fate to the test?"
"That"s right. Upon my word, my boy, if I were a galvanic foreigner instead of a staid Englishman, I should jump up and embrace you. Consider yourself embraced. When shall you see her? We will go into the dining room now and get a cup of tea from the ladies; after which, you shall see her as soon and as often as you please. And after you win her, as I am sure you will, we will have a blithe wedding and you and your bride will do the Continent for a wedding-tour, and then come back and spend the Autumn at Lone. We two old papas, the duke and myself, will join you there, and everything will be quite as it used to be in the old days."
"Ah! my poor father!" sighed the young man.
"What of the duke, my dear boy? You told me he was well," said the banker, anxiously.
"Yes, he is well in body, better in body than he has been for years; but I think that is only because his mind is failing."
"I am very sorry to hear that! In what respect does this failure show itself--in loss of memory?"
"In partial loss of memory; but chiefly in a hallucination that possesses him. He thinks that he is still the master of Lone as well as the Duke of Hereward. He thinks that he lives in London, and in the most Objectionable part of London, only to gratify my "eccentric whim" of being a journalist. And he daily and hourly urges me to return with him to Lone!"
"In the name of Heaven, then gratify him! Take him to Lone as my guest, until you can keep him there as your own. Let him be happy in the illusion that he is still its master. I will see that the servants there, who are most of them his own old people, do not say or do anything to dispel the illusion! Come, my son-in-law, that is to be, will you take your father at once to Lone?"
For all answer the young marquis grasped and wrung the hand of his old friend.
"But will you do it?" persisted the banker, who wanted to be satisfied on that point.
"I will think of it. I will think most gratefully of your kind invitation, Sir Lemuel. And now shall we join the ladies?"
"Certainly," said the banker.
They went into the drawing-room.
Lady Belgrade was presiding over the tea urn.
Salome, who was seated near her, looked up and saw him. Again the marquis noted the sudden, beautiful lighting up of those soft, gray eyes, as they were lifted for a moment to his face. Again they fell beneath his glance, as her pale cheeks flushed up. He could not be mistaken. This sweet girl whom he loved, loved him in return.
"I was just about to send for you. You lingered long at table, Sir Lemuel," said Lady Belgrade, as the two gentlemen bowed and seated themselves.
"Oh, important political and journalistic matters to discuss," said Sir Lemuel. ("Only they were _not_ discussed,") he added, mentally.
"So I supposed," said Lady Belgrade, as she handed him a cup of tea, which he immediately pa.s.sed to his guest.
After tea, when the service was removed, Sir Lemuel challenged Lady Belgrade for a game of chess, and told his daughter to show Mr. Scott those chromoes of the Madonnas of Raphael which had arrived in the last parcel from Paris.
Salome flushed to the edges of her dark hair as she arose, glanced shyly at her guest for an instant, and walked to the other end of the drawing-room.
There, on a gilded stand, under a brilliant gasolier, lay a large and handsome volume, which Salome indicated as the one referred to by her father.