"Lord Lambeth," said Bessie Alden, "are you a hereditary legislator?""Oh, I say!" cried Lord Lambeth, "don't make me call myself such names as that.""But you are a member of Parliament," said the young girl.
"I don't like the sound of that, either.""Don't you sit in the House of Lords?" Bessie Alden went on.
"Very seldom," said Lord Lambeth.
"Is it an important position?" she asked.
"Oh, dear, no," said Lord Lambeth.
"I should think it would be very grand," said Bessie Alden, "to possess, simply by an accident of birth, the right to make laws for a great nation.""Ah, but one doesn't make laws. It's a great humbug.""I don't believe that," the young girl declared.
"It must be a great privilege, and I should think that if one thought of it in the right way--from a high point of view--it would be very inspiring."
"The less one thinks of it, the better," Lord Lambeth affirmed.
"I think it's tremendous," said Bessie Alden; and on another occasion she asked him if he had any tenantry.
Hereupon it was that, as I have said, he was a little bored.
"Do you want to buy up their leases?" he asked.
"Well, have you got any livings?" she demanded.
"Oh, I say!" he cried. "Have you got a clergyman that is looking out?"But she made him tell her that he had a castle; he confessed to but one.
It was the place in which he had been born and brought up, and, as he had an old-time liking for it, he was beguiled into describing it a little and saying it was really very jolly. Bessie Alden listened with great interest and declared that she would give the world to see such a place.
Whereupon--"It would be awfully kind of you to come and stay there,"said Lord Lambeth. He took a vague satisfaction in the circumstance that Percy Beaumont had not heard him make the remark I have just recorded.
Mr. Westgate all this time had not, as they said at Newport, "come on."His wife more than once announced that she expected him on the morrow;but on the morrow she wandered about a little, with a telegram in her jeweled fingers, declaring it was very tiresome that his business detained him in New York; that he could only hope the Englishmen were having a good time.
"I must say," said Mrs. Westgate, "that it is no thanks to him if you are."And she went on to explain, while she continued that slow-paced promenade which enabled her well-adjusted skirts to display themselves so advantageously, that unfortunately in America there was no leisure class.
It was Lord Lambeth's theory, freely propounded when the young men were together, that Percy Beaumont was having a very good time with Mrs. Westgate, and that, under the pretext of meeting for the purpose of animated discussion, they were indulging in practices that imparted a shade of hypocrisy to the lady's regret for her husband's absence.
"I assure you we are always discussing and differing,"said Percy Beaumont. "She is awfully argumentative.
American ladies certainly don't mind contradicting you.
Upon my word I don't think I was ever treated so by a woman before.
She's so devilish positive."
Mrs. Westgate's positive quality, however, evidently had its attractions, for Beaumont was constantly at his hostess's side.
He detached himself one day to the extent of going to New York to talk over the Tennessee Central with Mr. Westgate;but he was absent only forty-eight hours, during which, with Mr. Westgate's assistance, he completely settled this piece of business. "They certainly do things quickly in New York,"he observed to his cousin; and he added that Mr. Westgate had seemed very uneasy lest his wife should miss her visitor--he had been in such an awful hurry to send him back to her.
"I'm afraid you'll never come up to an American husband, if that's what the wives expect," he said to Lord Lambeth.
Mrs. Westgate, however, was not to enjoy much longer the entertainment with which an indulgent husband had desired to keep her provided.
On the 21st of August Lord Lambeth received a telegram from his mother, requesting him to return immediately to England; his father had been taken ill, and it was his filial duty to come to him.
The young Englishman was visibly annoyed. "What the deuce does it mean?"he asked of his kinsman. "What am I to do?"Percy Beaumont was annoyed as well; he had deemed it his duty, as I have narrated, to write to the duchess, but he had not expected that this distinguished woman would act so promptly upon his hint.
"It means," he said, "that your father is laid up.
I don't suppose it's anything serious; but you have no option.
Take the first steamer; but don't be alarmed.
Lord Lambeth made his farewells; but the few last words that he exchanged with Bessie Alden are the only ones that have a place in our record.
"Of course I needn't assure you," he said, "that if you should come to England next year, I expect to be the first person that you inform of it."Bessie Alden looked at him a little, and she smiled.
"Oh, if we come to London," she answered, "I should think you would hear of it."Percy Beaumont returned with his cousin, and his sense of duty compelled him, one windless afternoon, in mid-Atlantic, to say to Lord Lambeth that he suspected that the duchess's telegram was in part the result of something he himself had written to her.
"I wrote to her--as I explicitly notified you I had promised to do--that you were extremely interested in a little American girl."Lord Lambeth was extremely angry, and he indulged for some moments in the simple language of indignation. But I have said that he was a reasonable young man, and I can give no better proof of it than the fact that he remarked to his companion at the end of half an hour, "You were quite right, after all.
I am very much interested in her. Only, to be fair,"he added, "you should have told my mother also that she is not--seriously--interested in me."Percy Beaumont gave a little laugh. "There is nothing so charming as modesty in a young man in your position.
That speech is a capital proof that you are sweet on her.""She is not interested--she is not!" Lord Lambeth repeated.
"My dear fellow," said his companion, "you are very far gone."
