Part 9 (1/2)

'A certain Mademoiselle Kostalergi, whom I knew at Rome; one of the prettiest, cleverest, and nicest girls I ever met in my life.'

'Not the daughter of that precious Count Kostalergi you have told me such stories of?'

'The same, but most unlike him in every way. She is here, apparently with an uncle, who is now from home, and she and her cousin invite us to luncheon to-day.'

'What a lark!' said the other dryly.

'We'll go, of course?'

'In weather like this?'

'Why not? Shall we be better off staying here? I now begin to remember how the name of this place was so familiar to me. She was always asking me if I knew or heard of her mother's brother, the Lord Kilgobbin, and, to tell truth, I fancied some one had been hoaxing her with the name, and never believed that there was even a place with such a designation.'

'Kilgobbin does not sound like a lordly t.i.tle. How about Mademoiselle--what is the name?'

'Kostalergi; they call themselves princes.'

'With all my heart. I was only going to say, as you've got a sort of knack of entanglement--is there, or has there been, anything of that sort here?'

'Flirtation--a little of what is called ”spooning”--but no more. But why do you ask?'

'First of all, you are an engaged man.'

'All true, and I mean to keep my engagement. I can't marry, however, till I get a mission, or something at home as good as a mission. Lady Maude knows that; her friends know it, but none of us imagine that we are to be miserable in the meantime.'

'I'm not talking of misery. I'd only say, don't get yourself into any mess.

These foreign girls are very wide-awake.'

'Don't believe that, Harry; one of our home-bred damsels would give them a distance and beat them in the race for a husband. It's only in England girls are trained to angle for marriage, take my word for it.'

'Be it so--I only warn you that if you get into any sc.r.a.pe I'll accept none of the consequences. Lord Danesbury is ready enough to say that, because I am some ten years older than you, I should have kept you out of mischief. I never contracted for such a bear-leaders.h.i.+p; though I certainly told Lady Maude I'd turn Queen's evidence against you if you became a traitor.'

'I wonder you never told me that before,' said Walpole, with some irritation of manner.

'I only wonder that I told it now!' replied the other gruffly.

'Then I am to take it, that in your office of guardian, you'd rather we'd decline this invitation, eh?'

'I don't care a rush for it either way, but, looking to the sort of day it is out there, I incline to keep the house.'

'I don't mind bad weather, and I'll go,' said Walpole, in a way that showed temper was involved in the resolution.

Lockwood made no other reply than heaping a quant.i.ty of turf on the fire, and seating himself beside it.

When a man tells his fellow-traveller that he means to go his own road--that companions.h.i.+p has no tie upon him--he virtually declares the partners.h.i.+p dissolved; and while Lockwood sat reflecting over this, he was also canva.s.sing with himself how far he might have been to blame in provoking this hasty resolution.

'Perhaps he was irritated at my counsels, perhaps the notion of anything like guidance offended him; perhaps it was the phrase, ”bear-leaders.h.i.+p,”

and the half-threat of betraying him, has done the mischief.' Now the gallant soldier was a slow thinker; it took him a deal of time to arrange the details of any matter in his mind, and when he tried to muster his ideas there were many which would not answer the call, and of those which came, there were not a few which seemed to present themselves in a refractory and unwilling spirit, so that he had almost to suppress a mutiny before he proceeded to his inspection.