“I wish I could persuade you to be sensible.”
“That’s just what I think I am.”
“I wish I could get you to see my point of view.”
“I do see your point of view. But dimly. You see, my own takes up such a lot of the foreground.”
There was a pause.
“Then I am afraid,” said Lord Marshmoreton, “that we must leave matters as they stand.”
“Until they can be altered for the better.”
“We will say no more about it now.”
“Very well.”
“But I must ask you to understand clearly that I shall have to do everything in my power to stop what I look on as an unfortunate entanglement.”
“I understand,”
“Very well.”
Lord Marshmoreton coughed. George looked at him with some surprise. He had supposed the interview to be at an end, but the other made no move to go. There seemed to be something on the earl’s mind.
“There is–ah–just one other thing,” said Lord Marshmoreton. He coughed again. He felt embarrassed. “Just–just one other thing,” he repeated.
The reason for Lord Marshmoreton’s visit to George had been twofold. In the first place, Lady Caroline had told him to go. That would have been reason enough. But what made the visit imperative was an unfortunate accident of which he had only that morning been made aware.
It will be remembered that Billie Dore had told George that the gardener with whom she had become so friendly had taken her name and address with a view later on to send her some of his roses. The scrap of paper on which this information had been written was now lost. Lord Marshmoreton had been hunting for it since breakfast without avail.
Billie Dore had made a decided impression upon Lord Marshmoreton. She belonged to a type which he had never before encountered, and it was one which he had found more than agreeable. Her knowledge of roses and the proper feeling which she manifested towards rose-growing as a life-work consolidated the earl’s liking for her. Never, in his memory, had he come across so sensible and charming a girl; and he had looked forward with a singular intensity to meeting her again. And now some too zealous housemaid, tidying up after the irritating manner of her species, had destroyed the only clue to her identity.
It was not for some time after this discovery that hope dawned again for Lord Marshmoreton. Only after he had given up the search for the missing paper as fruitless did he recall that it was in George’s company that Billie had first come into his life. Between her, then, and himself George was the only link.
It was primarily for the purpose of getting Billie’s name and address from George that he had come to the cottage. And now that the moment had arrived for touching upon the subject, he felt a little embarrassed.
“When you visited the castle,” he said, “when you visited the castle…”
“Last Thursday,” said George helpfully.
“Exactly. When you visited the castle last Thursday, there was a young lady with you.”
Not realizing that the subject had been changed, George was under the impression that the other had shifted his front and was about to attack him from another angle. He countered what seemed to him an insinuation stoutly.
“We merely happened to meet at the castle. She came there quite independently of me.”
Lord Marshmoreton looked alarmed. “You didn’t know her?” he said anxiously.
“Certainly I knew her. She is an old friend of mine. But if you are hinting…”
“Not at all,” rejoined the earl, profoundly relieved. “Not at all. I ask merely because this young lady, with whom I had some conversation, was good enough to give me her name and address. She, too, happened to mistake me for a gardener.”
“It’s those corduroy trousers,” murmured George in extenuation.
“I have unfortunately lost them.”
“You can always get another pair.”
“Eh?”
“I say you can always get another pair of corduroy trousers.”
“I have not lost my trousers. I have lost the young lady’s name and address.”
“Oh!”
“I promised to send her some roses. She will be expecting them.”
“That’s odd. I was just reading a letter from her when you came in. That must be what she’s referring to when she says, ‘If you see dadda, the old dear, tell him not to forget my roses.’ I read it three times and couldn’t make any sense out of it. Are you Dadda?”