give him a hint,” he muttered to my Lady, “about going back to-morrow.
He eats like a shark! It would hardly do for me to mention it.”
His wife caught the idea, and at once began giving hints of the most
subtle and delicate kind. “Just see what a short way it is back to
Fairyland! Why, if you started to-morrow morning, you’d get there in
very little more than a week!”
The Baron looked incredulous. “It took me a full month to come,” he said.
“But it’s ever so much shorter, going back, you know!’
The Baron looked appealingly to the Vice-warden, who chimed in readily.
“You can go back five times, in the time it took you to come here
once–if you start to-morrow morning!”
All this time the Sonata was pealing through the room. The Baron could
not help admitting to himself that it was being magnificently played:
but he tried in vain to get a glimpse of the youthful performer.
Every time he had nearly succeeded in catching sight of him, either the
Vice-Warden or his wife was sure to get in the way, pointing out some
new place on the map, and deafening him with some new name.
He gave in at last, wished a hasty good-night, and left the room,
while his host and hostess interchanged looks of triumph.
“Deftly done!” cried the Vice-Warden. “Craftily contrived!
But what means all that tramping on the stairs?” He half-opened the door,
looked out, and added in a tone of dismay, “The Baron’s boxes are being
carried down!”
“And what means all that rumbling of wheels?” cried my Lady. She peeped
through the window curtains. “The Baron’s carriage has come round!”
she groaned.
At this moment the door opened: a fat, furious face looked in: a voice,
hoarse with passion, thundered out the words “My room is full of
frogs–I leave you!”: and the door closed again.
And still the noble Sonata went pealing through the room: but it was
Arthur’s masterly touch that roused the echoes, and thrilled my very
soul with the tender music of the immortal ‘Sonata Pathetique’:
and it was not till the last note had died away that the tired but happy
traveler could bring himself to utter the words “good-night!” and to
seek his much-needed pillow.
CHAPTER 8.
A RIDE ON A LION.
The next day glided away, pleasantly enough, partly in settling myself
in my new quarters, and partly in strolling round the neighbourhood,
under Arthur’s guidance, and trying to form a general idea of Elveston
and its inhabitants. When five o’clock arrived, Arthur proposed without
any embarrassment this time–to take me with him up to ‘the Hall,’
in order that I might make acquaintance with the Earl of Ainslie,
who had taken it for the season, and renew acquaintance with his daughter
Lady Muriel.
My first impressions of the gentle, dignified, and yet genial old man
were entirely favourable: and the real satisfaction that showed itself
on his daughter’s face, as she met me with the words “this is indeed an
unlooked-for pleasure!”, was very soothing for whatever remains of
personal vanity the failures and disappointments of many long years,
and much buffeting with a rough world, had left in me.
Yet I noted, and was glad to note, evidence of a far deeper feeling
than mere friendly regard, in her meeting with Arthur though this was,
as I gathered, an almost daily occurrence–and the conversation
between them, in which the Earl and I were only occasional sharers,
had an ease and a spontaneity rarely met with except between very old
friends: and, as I knew that they had not known each other for a longer
period than the summer which was now rounding into autumn, I felt
certain that ‘Love,’ and Love alone, could explain the phenomenon.
“How convenient it would be,” Lady Muriel laughingly remarked,
a propos of my having insisted on saving her the trouble of carrying
a cup of tea across the room to the Earl, “if cups of tea had no weight
at all! Then perhaps ladies would sometimes be permitted to carry them
for short distances!”
“One can easily imagine a situation,” said Arthur, “where things would