The speaker, a slightly built man, just beyond the vague line of
"young," glanced up with his dark, somewhat sombre and yet softly
cynical eyes at the face of his companion who was driving. This
companion was unmistakably young, and there was not a trace of cynicism
in his grey-blue eyes which looked out upon the rain and mist with
pleasant cheerfulness. He was neither particularly fair nor dark; but
there was a touch of brighter colour than usual in his short, crisp
hair; and no woman had yet found fault with the moustache or the lips
beneath. And yet, though Stafford Orme's face was rather too handsome
than otherwise, the signs of weakness which one sees in so many
good-looking faces did not mar it; indeed, there was a hint of
strength, not to say sternness, in the well-cut lips, a glint of power
and masterfulness in the grey eyes and the brows above them which
impressed one at first sight; though when one came to know him the
impression was soon lost, effaced by the charm for which Stafford was
famous, and which was perpetually recruiting his army of friends.
No doubt it is easy to be charming when the gods have made you good to
look upon, and have filled your pockets with gold into the bargain.
Life was a pageant of pleasure to Stafford Orme: no wonder he sang and
smiled upon the way and had no lack of companions.
Even this man beside him, Edmund Howard, whose name was a by-word for
cynicism, who had never, until he had met Stafford Orme, gone an inch
out of his self-contained way to please or benefit a fellow-man, was
the slave of the young fellow's imperious will, and though he made
burlesque complaint of his bondage, did not in his heart rebel against
it.
Stafford laughed shortly as he looked at the rain-swept hills round
which the two good horses were taking the well-appointed phaeton.
"Oh, I knew you would come," he said. "It was just this way. You know
the governor wrote and asked me to come down to this new place of his
at Bryndermere--"
"Pardon me, Stafford; you forget that I have been down South--where I
wish to Heaven I had remained!--and that I only returned yesterday
afternoon, and that I know nothing of these sudden alarums and
excursions of your esteemed parent."
"Ah, no; so you don't!" assented Stafford; "thought I'd told you: shall
have to tell you now; I'll cut it as short as possible." He paused for
a moment and gently drew the lash of the whip over the wet backs of the
two horses who were listening intently to the voice of their beloved
master. "Well, three days ago I got a letter from my father; it was a
long one; I think it's the first long letter I ever received from him.
He informed me that for some time past he has been building a little
place on the east side of Bryndermere Lake, that he thought it would be
ready by the ninth of this month; and would I go down--or is it
up?--there and meet him, as he was coming to England and would go
straight there from Liverpool. Of course there was not time for me to
reply, and equally, of course, I prepared to obey. I meant going
straight down to Bryndermere; and I should have done so, but two days
ago I received a telegram telling me that the place would not be ready,
and that he would not be there until the eleventh, and asking me to
fill up the interval by sending down some horses and carriages. It
occurred to me, with one of those brilliant flashes of genius which you
have so often remarked in me, my dear Howard, that I would drive down,
at any rate, part of the way; so I sent some of the traps direct and
got this turn-out as far as Preston with me. With another of those
remarkable flashes of genius, it also occurred to me that I should be
devilish lonely with only Pottinger here," he jerked his head towards
the groom, who sat in damp and stolid silence behind. "And so I wrote
and asked you to come. Kind of me, wasn't it?"