"No, I don't think she would. And do you know, dear Mrs. Eldridge, I've a fancy in my head that he is thinking about it already."

"Really? That's very interesting. Is it your niece? She seems a very nice girl."

"Oh, no. Patricia and he get on very well together, but there's never likely to be anything of that sort between them. Patricia is going in for music; she has a very pretty little voice--you must hear her sing--and though she _needn't_ do anything, you never know with a girl, in these days. No, it isn't Patricia, dear. I wonder you haven't seen something yourself; you must look much nearer home."

"One of _my_ girls?" she laughed, naturally. "Which one?" she asked.

"Why, Pamela, of course. Judith is hardly grown up yet."

"And Alice and Isabelle are too ugly, besides being still less grown up.

Well, he does like coming over to us, and we're always very pleased to see him. But really, I don't think it has got as far as that yet. If it had I shouldn't have asked which of the girls you suspected. He seems to like them both equally--all four equally, I might almost say. If it _were_ Pamela, should you think she was quite good enough for him?"

The artistic conscience approved of this question, as carrying over the earlier tone of the conversation into the later. But Lady Crowborough had quite done with that earlier tone. "Oh, my dear!" she said in expostulation. "We're not _worldly_. You ought to know us better than that by this time. Besides, Pamela might marry anybody. _You're_ not worldly either, I'm sure; but you would expect her to make what is called a good match, I should think. Besides--_your_ daughter!"

Mrs. Eldridge forgave her everything. "It would be rather nice," she said. "I shall hate to lose Pam. It seems such a little time ago that she was a tiny child. I suppose she's a little more to me than the others, because she was the first girl. Still, I've got to lose her some time or other, and I should love it if she didn't go _very_ far away. At the same time, you know, I don't think it's going to happen."

Lady Crowborough looked disappointed. She had always shown herself very much taken with Pamela, since her babyhood, and Mrs. Eldridge had known, all the time she was amusing herself with her attempted stand-offishness towards herself, that she had only to mention Pamela's name to turn it into entire friendliness. "I _should_ like it," she said. "And I suppose neither you nor Colonel Eldridge would object, would you?"

"No, of course we shouldn't. One has to think of the sort of marriage one's daughters are likely to make, and we couldn't expect a more satisfactory one, for any of our girls."

"Well, there is the position, of course," said Lady Crowborough, with a slight return to her great lady manner. "But n.o.body would fill it better than Pamela--as a _young_ wife, I mean."

A glint appeared in Mrs. Eldridge's eyes. "You would be able to teach her what she didn't know," she said.

"Oh, yes. There's nothing so very difficult about it, if you're of the right sort of birth to begin with. Well, there's no hurry. They're both quite young still. But I _should_ like it to happen, I must say; and I'm quite glad we've had a little talk about it. There'd be no harm in trying to help it on, would there? If you and I are agreed, we might do something, of course without showing our hands, you know."

"Yes; you said something about a picnic just now."

All Lady Crowborough's petals expanded to their utmost. "Ah!" she exclaimed ecstatically. "A picnic. Now do let us arrange a picnic!"

CHAPTER XXII

A SUMMER AFTERNOON

Lord Crowborough and Colonel Eldridge had retired for their after-luncheon cigars to another lower terrace overlooking the garden slopes. Lord Crowborough felt it necessary to say something about Sir William's elevation to the Order which he himself adorned, but was not quite sure how his friend would take it. Vague rumours of a dispute had reached Persh.o.r.e Castle, though nothing was known there as to the grounds of it. Perhaps Edmund Eldridge objected to his brother being elevated above himself. His prejudices were not always reasonable.

"I'm sure William will be very useful to us," said Lord Crowborough, expansively. "He's made an extraordinary success of everything he has done so far. A very capable fellow, William! We've plenty of room for men like him. A man of family too! So many of the people they send to us don't know who their grandfathers were."

"Or else they do know, and keep it dark."

Lord Crowborough laughed appreciatively. "That's very good," he said.

"Very good indeed! I must remember that. Or else they do know, and keep it dark. Yes, you've just about hit it. There was a fellow I met a short time ago--I forget his name, which I'd never heard of, or what he called himself--impossible to keep all these new t.i.tles in your head--but he told me himself that his grandfather had served behind the counter of a grocer's shop. Well, _he_ didn't keep it dark, to do him justice, and I think they'd only made him a baronet, now I come to think of it, and not a peer. But 'pon my word with half of 'em it's just paying down money, and up they go. Hardly any pretence of having _done_ anything to deserve it. Of course William _has_ made himself useful. Nothing to complain of there."

"They wanted him either in the Lords or the Commons, as I understand.

There's no question of _his_ buying a t.i.tle."

"Eh? Oh, no! Besides, such things aren't done. n.o.body really _buys_ a t.i.tle. There's always _some_ reason for it. With him there's a good one."

"Yes, but-- People aren't saying that he has paid money for it, are they?"

"Eh? Oh, I dare say he made a handsome subscription to Party funds, you know. He can afford it. He's a rich fellow, William. _That_ wouldn't be buying his t.i.tle."

"It wouldn't be far off. Is it the general opinion that he has done that?"

"General opinion? My dear fellow, what does general opinion matter? If he's told you definitely that he hasn't--!"

"Oh, he hasn't told me anything about it. I haven't seen him for a month."

"Eh? I'm sorry to hear that, Edmund. I did hear something about you having fallen out. I hope it's nothing serious. You've always been such good friends, you and William. You're not annoyed about his peerage, are you?"

"No. Why should I be annoyed about it? I should be if I thought he'd bought it--directly or indirectly--as you seem to hint. But I don't think he would do that."

"Eh? No, I dare say not. I don't know anything about it. What are you going to do about shooting this year? You haven't preserved at all since the war, have you?"

"No. William wanted to. We've run the shooting together for some years, you know. He was ready to pay to get it all going again, but I didn't care about that, and I can't afford to pay my share now. There'll be enough birds for a few days now and then, which is all I want."

"Ah, then I suppose that's why William is going off to Suffolk."

"Going off to Suffolk?"

"You didn't know? I thought perhaps that might have had something to do with your falling out with him--cutting himself loose from Hayslope, now that he's more interested in it--or ought to be."

"What we've fallen out about is-- But I don't want to go into it; it's a private affair. I've told you that I haven't seen him for weeks, and he hasn't been here as much as usual. I don't know anything about his movements."

"Well, it came to me in rather a roundabout way, though as it happens I can vouch for it as far as it goes. I don't know whether I'm letting out any secrets; but a man I dined with at Brooks's the other night, talking about how the old estates were getting into the hands of--I mean, he happened to mention a place in Suffolk that belonged to a relation of his, and I understood that William was in negotiation for it. Of course I said I knew him, and he'd be all right as a neighbour; but I said that he had a place here, and a property coming to him by and by, and I was surprised to hear that he was thinking of buying another one. However, he a.s.sured me that it was so, but perhaps he was mistaken.

He certainly said that William had been down to see the place, because his cousin had told him so. Nevill Goring it was--no harm in mentioning his name. I can't remember who he said his cousin was, or the name of the place, though he did mention them both, and I understood him to say it was practically fixed up. You see William is _known_. People talk about him now, and if he does anything it's known about; often gets into the papers too."

"Yes, I suppose so. It's difficult to believe all the same, because he would hardly buy a big place without consulting his wife, and she's been down here for the last two or three weeks, without going away. We've seen her constantly, and she's never mentioned such a thing."

"Oh, you still see her?"

"Yes. There's no quarrel with her! There'd be no quarrel with William if he were what he used to be. However, I don't want to talk about it.

He'll go his own way, I suppose. If it's really true that he's thinking of buying another place, I suppose his way and mine will diverge more than ever."

"Well now, my dear Edmund, can't I do something about it? You're both friends of mine. You're more my friend than William is, but still you're both friends, of very long standing. I don't _like_ to see you at loggerheads, and I don't see any reason for it. Besides, it's an exceptionally bad thing in this case, because there's your property, very much reduced now I'm sure, like everybody's property, and there's William with a great deal of money--really a _great_ deal of money he must have made, or he wouldn't have been able to--well, he wouldn't be able to buy another big landed property, as apparently he's thinking of doing. You _ought_ to be working in together, you two, not drifting apart like this."

"Yes; I know." He spoke rather sadly. "But as for William's money, I'm sick of his money, Crowborough. It seems to stand for everything. What we've actually quarrelled about is a very small thing. I know that, and I'm not going over it with you. No, you can't do anything; thank you, all the same. It began by William using his money in what I thought was an unjustifiable way. All the way through, at Hayslope, there am I adjusting things to the new conditions, as all landowners must nowadays, spending my life there, and doing more work than I've ever had to do for myself; and there's William just coming down now and then, and complicating everything with his money, throwing labour out of gear, not even consulting me in matters where I ought to be consulted, doing just what he pleases. He gets a peerage, and you tell me that the general idea is that _that's_ owing to his money. He's quarrelled with me, so Hayslope isn't agreeable to him any longer, I suppose, and he's got enough money to go and buy another big place, just to get away from it, though it will all be his some day. His money has altered William entirely. Now he's Lord Eldridge, and I'm just a n.o.body of a poor country gentleman, hard hit by the war. I don't mind that--not for myself, though I do for my wife and children; but you'd think he wouldn't want to be always ramming it down my throat--his elder brother, and the head of his family, in spite of his new peerage. If I were content to sit down and take his charity, I dare say we should get on very well together. I don't know how much money he has, but I dare say he could make me perfectly comfortable at Hayslope without feeling it.

But I'm not taking his charity, or his patronage either. It isn't in me to do it, not even for the sake of my family, and I'd swallow a good deal for them to have what they ought to have."

Lord Crowborough's face had become serious during this speech. "Well, I see how it is, Edmund," he said. "I see very plainly how it is; because I've always felt about William--though I've never said so--that with all his generosity--and I think there's no doubt he's a generous man; in fact I know he is--he's not quite--how shall I put it?--one of our sort.

I don't know why, I'm sure, because he is by birth, and upbringing too.

I suppose he's what they call a throwback. The fact is I don't think he could have made all that money, and still be making it, I suppose, if he weren't different--different altogether. The money-makers are a type apart, and they may make him a peer, and he may be a big landowner--anything you please--but the more he gets with that swim the more he resembles their type. That's what you're up against, at the bottom of it all, quarrel or no quarrel; and of course you're not at home with that type. But now, when you've said that, can't you make allowances? After all, he's your brother, and you've been good friends all your lives. Let me have a talk to William. Let me tell him that _you_ don't want to quarrel, and--"

"Oh, you can do that if you like. I've no objection. But you've put it very plainly. He's approximating more and more to type. There's not much chance, I think, of our hitting it off again, as we used to. I stand where I did, and he's altered. Still, I agree that there's no need to quarrel with a man just because he isn't one's own sort. If you can get it on to those lines there may be a way out. I did stipulate that he should do something that I think he ought to have done of his own accord. He would have done it without question a year or two ago. But I don't care whether he does it or not now. It's gone beyond that. I shall never think of him again as I used to because he's not the same man. But there's no reason why we should live at daggers drawn--especially if he's going to withdraw from Hayslope. That's about the last straw. But I'm not going to make a fuss about it, or about anything else that he does. He can go his way, and I'll go mine. We're better apart now."