“If you had had any brothers, Papa,” said the Viscount, smiling, “you would know that the junior members of the fraternity are very much more likely to run directly counter to what their eldest brother advises than to follow his lead, even if he were a far more notable sportsman than I am! I am sorry to disoblige you, but I must firmly decline to meddle in Simon’s career. I don’t think there’s the least need for anyone to do so, but if you do think so it’s for you to curb his activities, not me!”

“How the devil can I curb them?” demanded his father explosively. “He’s a curst care-for-nobody, and although you may consider me a gudgeon I promise you I’m not such a gudgeon as to stop his allowance! A pretty thing it would be if he got himself rolled-up and I were forced to rescue him from some sponging-house! Not but what it would do him good to be locked up!”

“You know, sir, you are taking much too gloomy a view of young Simon’s prospects! I wish you won’t tease yourself over him—even if he has put you all on end!”

“I might have known you wouldn’t tease yourself!” said the Earl, assailed by another stab of pain. “You’re all alike! Why I’ve been saddled with a pack of selfish, worthless, ungrateful brats I shall never know! Your mother spoilt you to death, of course, and I was fool enough to let her do it! As for you, damme if you’re not the worst of the bunch! I wash my hands of you, and the sooner you take yourself off the better pleased I shall be! I don’t know what brought you down here, but if it was to see me you might have spared yourself the pains! I don’t want to see your face again!”

The Viscount got up, saying with perfect affability: “Well, in that case I’ll remove it from your sight, sir! I won’t ask you for your blessing, for your sense of propriety would compel you to bestow it on me, and I’m sure it would choke you to utter the words! I won’t even offer to shake hands with you—but that’s to save myself a wounding snub!”

“Jackanapes!” said his parent, thrusting out his hand.

The Viscount took it in his, dropped a respectful kiss on it, and said: “Take care of yourself, Papa! Goodbye!”

The Earl watched him cross the room to the door, and, as he opened it, said, in the voice of a man goaded beyond endurance: “I suppose you came home because you wanted something!”

“I did!” replied the Viscount, throwing him a look brimful of mockery over his shoulder. “I wanted to see Mama!”

He then withdrew in good order, firmly closing the door on the explosion of wrath which greeted this parting shot.

When he reached the hall of the house he found that the butler was there, and encountered such a glance of mournful sympathy from this aged and privileged retainer that he broke into a chuckle, saying: “You’re looking your last at me, Pedmore! My father has cast me out! He says I’m a worthless skitterbrain, and a jackanapes, besides a number of other things which I can’t at the moment remember. Would you have believed he could be so unfeeling?”

The butler clicked his tongue disapprovingly, and shook his head. Sighing deeply, he replied: “It’s the gout, my lord. It always makes him mifty!”

“Mifty!” said the Viscount. “What you mean is that it sets him at dagger-drawing with anyone unwise enough to cross his path, you old humbugger!”

“It would not become me to agree with your lordship, so I shall hold my peace,” said Pedmore severely. “And, if I may venture to proffer a word of advice—being as I have known your honoured parent for many years longer than you have, my lord—I would respectfully beg you not to set any store by anything he may say when he’s in the gout, for he doesn’t mean it—not if it’s you! And if you was to take snuff he’d be regularly blue-devilled—he would indeed, my lord, whatever he may have said to you!”

“Bless you, Pedmore, do you think I don’t know it?” said the Viscount, smiling affectionately at him. “You must think I’m a lunkhead! Where shall I find my mother?”

“In her drawing-room, my lord.”

The Viscount nodded, and ran lightly up the broad stairway. His mother greeted his entrance to her sanctum with a warm smile, and a hand held out to him. “Come in, dearest!” she said. “Have you been having a dreadful peal rung over you?”

He kissed her hand. “Lord, yes!” he said cheerfully. “He rattled me off in famous style! In fact, he has informed me that he doesn’t wish to see my face again.”

“Oh, dear! But he doesn’t mean it, you know. Yes, of course you do: you always understand things without having to have them explained to you, don’t you?”

“Do I? It seems very unlikely! And I don’t think it can be true, for both you and old Pedmore seem to believe that I must need reassurance! I don’t, but I claim no extraordinary powers of understanding for that! No one who was not a confirmed sapskull could suppose—being intimately acquainted with Papa!—that his violent attacks spring from anything but colic and gout! I feared the worst when I saw him partake so lavishly of the curried crab at dinner last night; and my fears were confirmed when he embarked on the second bottle of port. Pray don’t think me captious, Mama, but ought he to regale himself quite so unwisely?”

“No,” replied Lady Wroxton. “It is very bad for him, but it is quite useless to remonstrate with him, for it only puts him out of temper to be offered the wholesome dishes Dr Chettle prescribes, when he has expressed a desire for something most indigestible, and you know what he is, Ashley, when he is thwarted! And when he flies into one of his odd rages!”

“I know!” said the Viscount, smiling.

“It is even worse for him when he does that, because he becomes exhausted, and then falls into a fit of dejection, and says that he is burnt to the socket, and has nothing to do but to wind up his accounts. And it is quite as bad for the household, for even Pedmore, who is so very devoted to us, doesn’t like to have things thrown at him—particularly when it chances to be mutton-broth.”

“As bad as that?” said the Viscount, considerably startled.

“Oh, not always!” his mother assured him, in a comfortable voice. “And he is in general very sorry afterwards, and tries to make amends for having behaved with so little moderation. I daresay he will be a trifle twitty tonight, but I have the greatest hope that tomorrow he will be content to eat a panada, or a boiled chicken. So you have no need to look so concerned, dearest: very likely it will be several weeks before he indulges himself again with his favourite dishes.”

“I am concerned for you, Mama, far more than I am for him! I don’t know how you are able to bear your life! I could not!”

“No, I don’t suppose you could,” she responded, looking at him in tolerant amusement. “You weren’t acquainted with him when he was young, and naturally you were never in love with him. But I was, and I remember how gay, and handsome, and dashing he used to be, and how very happy we were. And we still love one another, Ashley.”

He was frowning a little, and asked abruptly: “Does he subject you to that sort of Turkish treatment, Mama?”

“Oh, no, never! To be sure, he does sometimes scold me, but he has never thrown anything at me—not even when I ventured to suggest that he should add some rhubarb and water to his port, which is an excellent remedy for a deranged stomach, you know, but he would have none of it. In fact, it put him into a regular flame.”

“I’m not surprised!” said the Viscount, laughing at her. “You almost deserved to have it thrown at you, I think!”

“Yes, that’s what he said, but he didn’t throw it at me. He burst out laughing, just as you did. What made him suddenly so vexed, dearest? Did you say something to make him pucker up? I know you haven’t done anything to displease him, for he was delighted to see you. Indeed, that is why we had the dressed crab, and he made Pedmore bring up the best port.”

“Good God, in my honour, was it? Of course, I dared not tell him so, but I’m not at all fond of port, and I had to drink the deuce of a lot of it. As for what vexed him, it was certainly nothing I said, for not an unwise word passed my lips! I can only suppose that the crab and the port were responsible.” He paused, thinking of what had passed in the library, the frown returning to his brow. He turned his eyes towards his mother, and said slowly: “And yet—Mama, what made him hark back, after all this time, to the match he tried to make between Hetta and me, when I was twenty?”

“Oh, did he do so? How unfortunate!”

“But why did he, Mama? He hasn’t spoken of it for years!”

“No, and that is what one particularly likes about him. He has a shockingly quick temper, but he never sinks into the mopes, or rubs up old sores. The thing is, I fear, that it has all been brought back to his mind because he has been told that at last dear Henrietta seems likely to contract a very eligible alliance.”

“Good God!” exclaimed the Viscount. “You don’t mean it! Who’s the suitor?”

“I shouldn’t think you know him, for he has only lately come into Hertfordshire, and I fancy he very rarely goes to London. He is old Mr Bourne’s cousin, and inherited Marley House from him. According to Lady Draycott, he is an excellent person, of the first respectability, a thousand agreeable talents, and most distinguished manners. I haven’t met him myself, but I do hope something may come of it, for I have the greatest regard for Henrietta, and have always wished to see her comfortably established. And, if Lady Draycott is to be believed, this Mr—Mr Nethersole—no, not Nethersole, but some name like that—seems to be just the man for her.”

“He sounds to me like a dashed dull dog!” said the Viscount.

“Yes, but persons of uniform virtues always do sound dull, Ashley. It seems to me such an odd circumstance! However, we must remember that Lady Draycott is not wholly to be relied on, and I daresay she has exaggerated. She thinks everyone she likes a pattern-saint, and everyone she doesn’t like a rascal.” Her eyes twinkled. “Well, she says you are a man of character, and very well conducted!”

“Much obliged to her!” said the Viscount. “To think she should judge me so well!”

She laughed. “Yes, indeed! It is a striking example of the advantage of having engaging manners. What a sad reflection it is that to have powers of captivation should be of much more practical use than worthiness!” She leaned forward to pinch his chin, her eyes full of loving mockery. “You can’t bamboozle me, you rogue! You are a here-and-thereian, you know, exactly as I am persuaded Papa told you! I wish you might form a tendre for some very nice girl, and settle down with her! Never mind! I don’t mean to tease you!”

She withdrew her hand, but he caught it, and held it, saying, with a searching look: “Do you, Mama? Did you, perhaps, wish me to offer for Hetta, nine years ago? Would you have liked her to have been your daughter-in-law?”

“What a very odd notion you have of me, my love! I hope I am not such a pea-goose as to have wished you to marry any girl for whom you had formed no lasting passion! To be sure, I have a great regard for Hetta, but I daresay you would not have suited. In any event, that has been past history for years, and nothing is such a bad bore as to be recalling it! I promise you, I shall welcome the bride you do choose at last with as much pleasure as I shall attend Hetta’s wedding to the man of her choice.”

“What, to the pattern-card whose name you can’t remember? Are the Silverdales at Inglehurst? I haven’t seen Hetta in town for weeks, but from what she told me when we met at the Castlereaghs’ ball I had supposed that she must by now have been fixed at Worthing, poor girl!”

“Lady Silverdale,” said his mother, in an expressionless voice, “finding that the only lodging she could tolerate in Worthing was not available this summer, has recollected that the sea-air always makes her bilious, and has chosen to retire to Inglehurst rather than to seek a lodging at some other resort.”

“What an abominable woman she is!” said the Viscount cheerfully. “Oh, well! I daresay Hetta will be better off with her pattern-card! I’ll drop in at Inglehurst tomorrow, on my way back to London, and try to discover what this fellow, Nether-what’s-it, is really like!”

Slightly taken aback, Lady Wroxton said, in mild expostulation: “My dear boy, you cannot, surely, question Hetta about him?”

“Lord, yes! of course I can!” said the Viscount. “There are no secrets between Hetta and me, Mama, any more than there are between Griselda and me—in fact,” he added, subjecting this confident assertion to consideration, “far fewer!”