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.