“Are we so ineligible?” she demanded.

“By birth, no. In all other respects, yes. I don’t know what your pecuniary resources may be, but — ”

“Enough!”

“If you are thinking of a Court presentation for your sister you would do better to fund your money: it’s an investment that would yield you no dividend.”

“I know that, and I don’t think of it.”

“What, then?”

She clasped her hands together in her lap, and said, a little breathlessly: “Almack’s!”

“You are aiming at the moon, Miss Merriville. No introduction of mine would help you to cross that hallowed threshold! Unless you number amongst your acquaintances some matron possessing the entree, who would be willing to sponsor you — ”

“I don’t. If that had been the case I shouldn’t have sought your assistance. But I won’t cry craven! Somehow I shall manage — see if I don’t!”

He rose politely, saying: “I hope you may. If you think my advice of value, may I suggest that you would have a better chance of success if you were to remove to one of the watering-places? Bath, or Tunbridge Wells, where you may attend the assemblies, and would no doubt meet persons of consideration.”

She too rose, but before she could answer him she was interrupted by the sound of hasty footsteps on the stairs. The next instant a sturdy schoolboy burst into the room, exclaiming: “Frederica, it was nothing but a fudge! We searched all over, and I asked people, and no one knew anything about it!”

IV

Miss Merriville, unperturbed by the irruption into her drawing-room of a young gentleman who had contrived to acquire, since she had last seen him some three hours earlier, a crumpled and grubby collar and muddied nankeens, responded with quick sympathy: “Oh, no! How wretched for you! But it can’t have been a fudge, Felix! It was Mr Rushbury who told you about it, and he wouldn’t have hoaxed you!”

By this time Master Felix Merriville had taken cursory stock of the Marquis, but he would undoubtedly have poured forth the story of his morning’s Odyssey to his sister had he not been quelled by another, and older, schoolboy, who, entering the room in his wake, severely adjured him to mind his manners. A large and shaggy dog, of indeterminate parentage, was at his heels; and just as he was apologizing to Frederica for having come in when she was entertaining a visitor, this animal advanced with the utmost affability to greet the Marquis. His disposition was friendly, as he showed by the waving of his plumed tail; and his evident intention was to jump up at the guest. But Alverstoke, wise in the ways of dogs, preserved his face from being generously licked, and his exquisitely fashioned coat of Bath Superfine from being smirched by muddy paws, by catching the animal’s forearms, and holding him at bay. “Yes, good dog!” he said. “I’m much obliged to you, but I don’t care to have my face licked!”

“Down, Lufra!” commanded Mr Jessamy Merriville, in even more severe accents. He added, with his sister’s absence of shyness: “I beg pardon, sir: I would not have brought him in if I had known that my sister was entertaining a visitor.”

“Not at all: I like dogs,” responded his lordship, reducing Lufra to abject slavery by running his fingers along the precise spot on the spine which that grateful hound was unable to scratch for himself. “What did you call him?”

“Lufra, sir,” said Jessamy, a dark flush rising to the roots of his hair. “At least, I never did so! It was a silly notion of my sisters; I called him Wolf, when he was a puppy! But they would persist, so, in the end, he wouldn’t answer to his right name! And he is not a bitch!”

Perceiving that his lordship had been carried out of his depth, Frederica explained the matter to him. “It’s from The Lady of the Lake,” she told him. “I dare say you recall the passage, when the Monarch bade let loose a gallant stag? And Lufra — whom from Douglas side Nor bribe nor threat could e’er divide, The fleetest hound in all the North, Brave Lufra saw, and darted forth. She left the royal hounds midway, And dashing on the antler’d prey, Sunk her sharp muzzle in his flank — ”

“And deep the flowing life-blood drank!” interpolated Felix, with relish.

“Stow it!” growled his senior. “It wasn’t a stag at all, sir — merely a young bull, which we had not thought to be dangerous! and as for drinking its life-blood — stuff!”

“No, but you can’t deny that Luff saved you from being gored!” said Frederica. She looked up at Alverstoke. “Only fancy! He was hardly more than a puppy, but he rushed in, and hung on to the bull’s muzzle, while Jessamy scrambled over the gate to safety! And I am very sure that not even the offer of a marrowbone could divide him from Jessamy, could it, dear Luff?”

Gratified by this tribute, the faithful hound flattened his ears, wagged his tail, and, after uttering a yelp of encouragement, sat panting at her feet. His master, rendered acutely uncomfortable by this passage, would have removed himself, his dog, and his brother from the drawing-room if Frederica had not detained him, saying: “No, pray don’t run away! I wish to make you known to Lord Alverstoke! This is my brother Jessamy, sir, and this is Felix.”

His lordship, acknowledging their bows, found that he was being surveyed: by Jessamy, whom he judged to be about sixteen years of age, measuringly; by Felix, three or four years younger, with the unwavering yet incurious gaze of childhood. He was quite unaccustomed to being weighed up; and there was a decided twinkle in his eyes as he looked the boys over.

Jessamy, he thought, was an exaggerated copy of his sister: his hair was darker than hers, his nose more aquiline, and his mouth and chin determined to the point of obstinacy. Felix still retained the snub-nose and the chubbiness of extreme youth, but he had the same firm chin and direct gaze which characterized his seniors, and even less shyness. It was he who broke the silence, blurting out: “Sir! Do you know about the Catch-me-who-can?”

“Of course he doesn’t! Don’t be so rag-mannered!” his brother admonished him. “I beg your pardon, sir: he has windmills in his head!”

“Not windmills: railway locomotives,” replied Alverstoke. He looked down at Felix. “Isn’t that it? Some sort of steam-locomotive?”

“Yes, that’s it!” said Felix eagerly. “Trevithick’s, sir. I don’t mean the Puffing Devil: that ran on the road, but it caught fire, and was burnt.”

“Ay! and a very good thing too!” interjected Jessamy. “Steam-engines on the roads! Why, they would send every horse mad with terror!”

“Oh, pooh! I daresay they would soon grow used to them. Besides, I’m not talking of that one. The one I mean runs on rails — at fifteen miles an hour, and very likely more!” He turned his attention to Alverstoke again. “I know it was brought to London, because Mr Rushbury — my godfather — told me so, and how you could ride in it for a shilling. He said it was north of the New Road, and not far, he thought, from Montague House.”

“I believe it was,” said Alverstoke. “From some cause or another I never visited it, but I do seem to recall that the inventor — what did you say his name is?”

“Trevithick! The first locomotive he made has five wagons, and it can carry ten tons of iron and seventy men, but only at five miles an hour. It’s in Wales — I forget the name of the place — but the one here has one carriage, and — ”

“Will you bite your tongue, you abominable little bagpipe?” interrupted Jessamy. “Anyone would take you for a regular shabster, rattling on like that, and not allowing Lord Alverstoke to edge in a word!”

Abashed by this rebuke, Felix hastily begged his lordship’s pardon; but Alverstoke, amused by him, said: “Nonsense! I can always edge in a word — when I wish to! There was such a locomotive, Felix, but I am afraid it’s a thing of the past. I rather think that Trevithick hired some ground, near Fitzroy Square, fenced it in, and laid down a circular track. As I recall, it created quite a stir, but although a great many people went to see it, few could be persuaded to ride in it — and none at all after a rail broke, and the engine overturned! So it had to be abandoned. It must have been quite ten years ago.” He smiled, seeing the look of disappointment on Felix’s countenance. “I’m sorry! Are you so interested in locomotives?”

“Yes — no — in engines!” stammered Felix. “Steam-power — c-compressed air —! Sir, have you seen the pneumatic lift at that foundry in Soho?”

“No,” said his lordship. “Have you?”

“They wouldn’t let me,” replied Felix sadly. A thought occurred to him; and, fixing his ardent eyes on Alverstoke’s face, he asked, with pent breath: “If you wished to see it — could you?”

Frederica, who had resumed her seat, said: “No, no, Felix! Lord Alverstoke does not wish to! You mustn’t plague him to take you there!”

She was right: Alverstoke had not the remotest desire to inspect a pneumatic lift, but he found himself unable to resist the pleading look in the eyes raised so hopefully to his. He sat down again, smiling a little ruefully, and replied: “I expect I could. But you must tell me more about it!”

At this, Jessamy, well-aware of what would be the outcome of such an invitation, directed an anguished glance at Frederica, but although her eyes twinkled responsively she made no attempt to silence her small brother.

It might have been a task beyond her power. It was seldom that Felix met with encouragement to expatiate on a subject which few people understood, and most thought boring. His eyes brightening, he dragged up a chair, and tried to explain the principles governing pneumatic lifts. From there it was a small step to the pattern-shop engine, which was driven by air from the blowing-machine in the same foundry; and within a very short space of time Alverstoke was being battered by oscillating cylinders, piston-rods, cross-tails, valve-gears, and blast-pipes. Since Felix’s understanding of these mysteries was naturally imperfect he was somewhat incoherent; and his thirst for knowledge led him to bombard Alverstoke with questions, few of which his lordship could answer satisfactorily. However, he had just enough grasp of the subject to enable him to avoid revolting Felix by posing counter-questions betraying the abysmal ignorance which, in that young gentleman’s opinion, rendered his brothers and sisters contemptible, and to promote him from the status of an irrelevant visitor to that of prime favourite. He was the most intelligent auditor Felix had encountered: a regular right one, who could even be pardoned for saying, apologetically: “You know, Felix, I know more about horses than engines!”