It did not occur to Lady Dunborough to ask herself seriously how a girl

in the Mastersons' position came to be in such quarters as the Castle

Inn, and to have a middle-aged and apparently respectable attorney for a

travelling companion. Or, if her ladyship did ask herself those

questions, she was content with the solution, which the tutor out of his

knowledge of human nature had suggested; namely, that the girl, wily as

she was beautiful, knew that a retreat in good order, flanked after the

fashion of her betters by duenna and man of business, doubled her

virtue; and by so much improved her value, and her chance of catching

Mr. Dunborough and a coronet.

There was one in the house, however, who did set himself these riddles,

and was at a loss for an answer. Sir George Soane, supping with Dr.

Addington, the earl's physician, found his attention wander from the

conversation, and more than once came near to stating the problem which

troubled him. The cosy room, in which the two sat, lay at the bottom of

a snug passage leading off the principal corridor of the west wing; and

was as remote from the stir and bustle of the more public part of the

house as the silent movements of Sir George's servant were from the

clumsy haste of the helpers whom the pressure of the moment had

compelled the landlord to call in.

The physician had taken his supper earlier, but was gourmet enough to

follow, now with an approving word, and now with a sigh, the different

stages of Sir George's meal. In public, a starched, dry man, the ideal

of a fashionable London doctor of the severer type, he was in private a

benevolent and easy friend; a judge of port, and one who commended it to

others; and a man of some weight in the political world. In his early

days he had been a mad doctor; and at Batson's he could still disconcert

the impertinent by a shrewd glance, learned and practised among those

unfortunates.

With such qualifications, Dr. Addington was not slow to perceive Sir

George's absence of mind; and presuming on old friendship--he had

attended the younger man from boyhood--he began to probe for the cause.

Raising his half-filled glass to the light, and rolling the last

mouthful on his tongue, 'I am afraid,' he said, 'that what I heard in

town was true?' 'What was it?' Soane asked, rousing himself.

'I heard, Sir George, that my Lady Hazard had proved an inconstant

mistress of late?' 'Yes. Hang the jade! And yet--we could not live without her!' 'They are saying that you lost three thousand to my Lord March, the

night before you left town?' 'Halve it.' 'Indeed? Still--an expensive mistress?' 'Can you direct me to a cheap one?' Sir George said rather crustily.




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