Mr. Vernon started slightly, and looked at the weak and foolish face as if he scarcely saw it.
"Why not!" he said, rather curtly. "It's a free country, and a man may marry whom he pleases."
"Yes, certainly; that is, an ordinary man—one of the middle class; but not, certainly not, a nobleman of Lord Angleford's rank and position. How old did it say he is, Eleanor?"
"It doesn't say, mamma," replied Nell.
"Ah, well, I know he is quite old; for I remember reading a paragraph about him a few weeks ago. They were describing the ancestral home of the Anglefords—Anglemere, it is called; one of the historic houses, like Blenheim and Chatsworth, you know. And this poor Lord Selbie, the nephew, will lose the title and everything. Dear me! how interesting! Is there anything more about him?'
"Oh, yes; a great deal more," said Nell despairfully.
"Then pray continue—that is, if Mr. Vernon is not tired; though, speaking from experience, there is nothing so soothing as being read to."
Mr. Vernon did not look as if he found the impertinent paragraphs in the Society News particularly soothing, but he said:
"I'm not at all tired. It's very interesting, as you say. Please go on, Miss Lorton."
Nell looked at him doubtfully, for there was a kind of sarcasm in his voice. But she took up the parable.
"'Lord Selbie is, in consequence of this marriage of his uncle, the object of profound and general sympathy; for, as the readers must be aware, he is a persona grata in society——' What is a persona grata?" Nell broke off to inquire.
"Lord knows!" replied Mr. Vernon grimly. "I don't suppose the bounder who wrote these things does."
Mrs. Lorton simpered.
"It's Italian, and it means that he is very popular, a general favorite."
"Then why don't they say so?" asked Nell, in a patiently disgusted fashion. "'Is a persona grata in society. He is strikingly handsome——'"
Mr. Vernon's lips curved with something between a grin and a sneer.
—"'And of the most charming manners.'"
"Who writes this kind of rot?" he muttered.
"'Since his first appearance in the circles of the London elite, Lord Selbie has been the cynosure of all eyes. To quote Hamlet again, he may truthfully be described as the "glass of fashion and the mould of form." His lordship is also a good all-round sportsman. He spent two or three years traveling in the Rockies and in Africa, and his exploits with the big game in both countries are well known. Like most young men of his class, Lord Selbie was rather wild at Oxford, and displayed a certain amount of diablerie in London during his quite early manhood. He is a splendid whip, and his four-in-hand was eclipsed by none other in the club. Lord Selbie is also an admirable horseman, and has won several cups in regimental races.'
"That is the end of that paragraph," said Nell, stifling a yawn, and glancing longingly through the window at the sea dancing in the sunlight. "Do you want any more?"
"Is there any?" asked Mr. Vernon grimly. "If so, we'd better have it, perhaps."
"Certainly," said Mrs. Lorton. "If there is anything I dislike more than another, it is incomplete information. Go on Eleanor."
Nell sighed and took up the precious paper again.
"'As is well known'—they always say that, because it flatters the readers, I suppose," she went on parenthetically—"'Lord Selbie is a "Lord" in consequence of his father, Mr. Herbert Selbie, the famous diplomatist, having been created a viscount; but, though he bears this title, we fancy Lord Selbie cannot be well off. The kind of life he has led since his advent in society must have strained his resources to the utmost, and we should not be far wrong if we described him as a poor man. This marriage of his uncle, the Earl of Angleford, must, therefore, be a serious blow to him, and may cause his complete retirement from the circles of ton in which he has shone so brilliantly. Lord Selbie, as we stated last week, is engaged to the daughter of Lord Turfleigh.'"
Nell dropped the paper and struggled with a portentous yawn.
"Thank you very much, Miss Lorton," said Mr. Vernon politely, with a half smile on his impassive face. "It is, as Mrs. Lorton says, very interesting."
Nell stared at him; then, seeing the irony in his eyes and on his lips, smiled.
"I thought for the moment that you meant it," she said quietly.
Mrs. Lorton heard, and sniffed at her.
"My dear Eleanor, what do you mean?" she inquired stiffly. "Of course, Mr. Vernon is interested. Why should he say so if he were not? I'm afraid, Eleanor, that you are of opinion that nothing but fiction has any claim on our attention, and that anything real and true is of no account. I may be old-fashioned and singular, but I find that these small details of the lives of our aristocracy are full of interest, not to say edifying. What do you think, Mr. Vernon?"
He had been gazing absently out of the window, but he pulled himself together, and came up to the scratch with a jerk.
"Certainly, certainly," he said.
Mrs. Lorton smiled triumphantly.
"You see, Eleanor, Mr. Vernon quite agrees with me. I must go and see if Molly has put the jelly in the window to cool. Meanwhile, Mr. Vernon may like you to continue reading to him."
Mr. Vernon rose to open the door for her—Nell noticed the act of courtesy—then sank down again.
"You don't want any more?" she said, looking at the paper on her knee.
"No, thanks," he said.
She tossed it onto a chair at the other end of the room.
"It is the most awful nonsense," she said, with a girlish frankness. "Why did you tell mamma that it was interesting?"
He met the direct gaze of the clear gray eyes, and smiled.
"Well—as it happened—it was," he said.
The clear gray eyes opened wider.
"What! All this gossip about the Earl of Angleford, and his nephew, Lord Selbie?"
He looked down, then raised his eyes, narrowed into slits, and fixed them above her head.
"I fancy it's true—in the main," he said, half apologetically.
"Well, and if it is," she retorted impatiently, "of what interest can it be to us? We don't know the Earl of Angleford, and don't care a button that he is married, and that his nephew is—what do you say?—disinherited."
"N-o," he admitted.
"Very well, then," she said triumphantly. "It is like reading the doings of people living in the moon."
"The moon is a long ways off," he ventured.
"Not farther from us than the world in which these earls and lords have their being," she retorted. "It all seems so—so impertinent to me, when I am reading it. Of what interest can the lives of these people be to us, to me, Nell Lorton? I never heard of Lord Angleford, and Lord—what is it?—Lord Selbie, before; did you?"
He glanced at her, then looked fixedly through the window.
"I've heard of them—yes," he said reluctantly.
"Ah, well, you are better informed than I am," said Nell, laughing softly. "There's Dick; he's calling me. Do you mind being left? He will make an awful row if I don't go out."
"Certainly not. Go by all means!" he said. "And thank you for—all the trouble you have taken."
Nell nodded and hurried out, and Mr. Vernon leaned back and bit at his mustache thoughtfully, not to say irritably.