Leaving the breakfast parlour, he made his way to the main hall, and (it might have been thought) to another century, since this central portion of a pile that sprawled over several acres was all that remained of the original structure. Rugged beams, plastered walls, and a floor of uneven flagstones lingered on here in odd but not infelicitous contrast to the suave elegance of the more modern parts of the great house. The winged staircase of Tudor origin that led up from the hall to a surrounding gallery was guarded by two figures in full armour; the walls were embellished with clusters of antique weapons; the windows were of armorial glass; and under an enormous hood a pile of hot ashes supported several blazing logs. Before this fire a liver-and-white spaniel lay in an attitude of watchful expectancy. She raised her head when she heard Sylvester’s step, and began to wag her tail; but when he came into the hall her tail sank, and although she bundled across the floor to meet him, and looked adoringly up at him when he stooped to pat her, she neither frisked about him nor uttered barks of joyful anticipation. His valet was hardly more familiar with his wardrobe than she, and she knew well that pantaloons and Hessian boots meant that the most she could hope for was to be permitted to lie at his feet in the library.

The Duchess’s apartments comprised, besides her bedchamber, and the dressing-room occupied by her maid, an antechamber which led into a large, sunny apartment, known to the household as the Duchess’s Drawing-Room. She rarely went beyond it, for she had been for many years the victim of an arthritic complaint which none of the eminent physicians who had attended her, or any of the cures she had undergone, had been able to arrest. She could still manage, supported by her attendants, to drag herself from her bedchamber to her drawing-room, but once lowered into her chair she could not rise from it without assistance. What degree of pain she suffered no one knew, for she never complained, or asked for sympathy. “Very well” was her invariable reply to solicitous inquiries; and if anyone deplored the monotony of her existence she laughed, and said that pity was wasted on her, and would be better bestowed on those who danced attendance on her. As for herself, with her son to bring her all the London on-dits, her grandson to amuse her with his pranks, her daughter-in-law to discuss the latest fashions with her, her patient cousin to bear with her crotchets, her devoted maid to cosset her, and her old friend, Mr. Leyburn, to browse with her among her books, she thought she was rather to be envied than pitied. Except to her intimates she did not mention her poems, but the fact was that the Duchess was an author. Mr. Blackwell had published two volumes of her verses, and these had enjoyed quite a vogue among members of the ton; for although they were, of course, published anonymously, the secret of their authorship soon leaked out, and was thought to lend considerable interest to them.

She was engaged in writing when Sylvester entered the room, on the table so cleverly made by the estate carpenter to fit across the arms of her wing-chair; but as soon as she saw who had come in she laid down her pen and welcomed Sylvester with a smile more charming than his own because so much warmer, and exclaimed: “Ah, how delightful! But so vexatious for you, love, to be obliged to stay at home on the first good shooting day we have had in a se’enight!”

“A dead bore, isn’t it?” he responded, bending over her to kiss her cheek. She put up her hand to lay it on his shoulder, and he stayed for a moment, scanning her face. Apparently he was satisfied with what he saw there, for he let his eyes travel to the delicate lace confection set on her silvered black hair, and said: “A new touch, Mama? That’s a very fetching cap!”

The ready laughter sprang to her eyes. “Confess that Anna warned you to take notice of my finery!”

“Certainly not! Do you think I must be told by your maid when you are looking in great beauty?”

“Sylvester, you make love so charmingly that I fear you must be the most outrageous flirt!”

“Oh, not outrageous, Mama! Are you busy with a new poem?”

“Merely a letter. Dearest, if you will push the table away, you may draw up that chair a little, and we can enjoy a comfortable prose.”

This he was prevented from doing by the hurried entrance from the adjoining bedchamber of Miss Augusta Penistone, who begged him, somewhat incoherently, not to trouble himself, since she considered the task peculiarly her own. She then pushed the table to the side of the room, and instead of effacing herself, as he always wished she would, lingered, amiably smiling at him. She was an angular, rather awkward lady, as kind as she was plain, and she served the Duchess, whose kinswoman she was, in the capacity of a companion. Her good nature was inexhaustible, but she was unfortunately quite unintelligent, and rarely failed to irritate Sylvester by asking questions to which the answers were patent, or commenting upon the obvious. He bore it very well, for his manners were extremely good, but when, after stating that she saw he had not gone out hunting, she recollected that one didn’t hunt after severe frost and said, with a merry laugh at her mistake: “Well, that was a stupid thing for me to have said, wasn’t it?” he was provoked into replying, though with perfect suavity: “It was, wasn’t it?”

The Duchess intervened at this stage of the dialogue, urging her cousin to go out into the sunshine while it lasted; and after saying that, to be sure, she might venture to do so if dear Sylvester meant to sit with his mama, which she had no doubt of, and pointing out that Anna would come if the Duchess rang the bell, she got herself to the door, which Sylvester was holding open. She was obliged to pause there to tell him that she was now going to leave him to chat with his mama, adding: “For I am sure you wish to be private with her, don’t you?”

“I do, but how you guessed it, cousin, I can’t imagine!” he replied.

“Oh!” declared Miss Penistone gaily, “a pretty thing it would be if I didn’t know, after all these years, just what you like! Well I will run away, then—but you should not trouble to open the door for me! That is to treat me like a stranger! I am for ever telling you so, am I not? But you are always so obliging!”

He bowed, and shut the door behind her. The Duchess said: “An undeserved compliment, Sylvester. My dear, how came you to speak as you did? It was not kind.”

“Her folly is intolerable!” he said impatiently. “Why do you keep such a hubble-bubble woman about you? She must vex you past bearing!”

“She is not very wise, certainly,” admitted the Duchess. “But I couldn’t send her away, you know!”

“Shall I do so for you?”

She was startled, but, supposing that he was speaking out of an unthinking exasperation, only said: “Nonsensical boy! You know you could no more do so than I could!”

He raised his brows. “Of course I could do it, Mama! What should stop me?”

“You cannot be serious!” she exclaimed, half inclined still to laugh at him.

“But I’m perfectly serious, my dear! Be frank with me! Don’t you wish her at Jericho?”

She said, with a rueful twinkle: “Well, yes—sometimes I do! Don’t repeat that, will you? I have at least the grace to be ashamed of myself!” She perceived that his expression was one of surprise, and said in a serious tone: “Of course it vexes you, and me too, when she says silly things, and hasn’t the tact to go away when you come to visit me, but I promise you I think myself fortunate to have her. It can’t be very amusing to be tied to an invalid, you know, but she is never hipped or out of temper, and whatever I ask her to do for me she does willingly, and so cheerfully that she puts me in danger of believing that she enjoys being at my beck and call.”

“So I should hope!”

“Now, Sylvester—”

“My dear Mama, she has hung on your sleeve ever since I can remember, and a pretty generous sleeve it has been! You have always made her an allowance far beyond what you would have paid a stranger hired to bear you company, haven’t you?”

“You speak as though you grudged it!”

“No more than I grudge the wages of my valet, if you think her worth it. I pay large wages to my servants, but I keep none in my employment who doesn’t earn his wage.”

There was a troubled look in the eyes that searched his face, but the Duchess only said: “The cases are not the same, but don’t let us brangle about it! You may believe that it would make me very unhappy to lose Augusta. Indeed, I don’t know how I should go on.”

“If that’s the truth, Mama, you need say no more. Do you suppose I wouldn’t pay anyone you wished to keep about you double—treble—what you pay Augusta?” He saw her stretch out her hand to him, and went to her immediately. “You know I wouldn’t do anything you don’t like! Don’t look so distressed, dearest!”

She pressed his hand. “I know you wouldn’t. Don’t heed me! It is only that it shocked me a little to hear you speak so hardly. But no one has less cause to complain of hardness in you than I, my darling.”

“Nonsense!” he said, smiling down at her. “Keep your tedious cousin, love—but allow me to wish that you had with you someone who could entertain you better—enter into what interests you!”

“Well, I have Ianthe,” she reminded him. “She doesn’t precisely enter into my interests, but we go on very comfortably together.”

“I am happy to hear it. But it begins to seem as if you won’t have the doubtful comfort of her society for much longer.”

“My dear, if you are going to suggest that I should employ a second lady to keep me company, I do beg of you to spare your breath!”