HE morning was remarkably fine and Lord Raymes in a mellow humor. Seated on the terrace in a basket-chair he complacently surveyed his famous Italian garden and the deer park undulating beyond.
"You look happy, Raymes," remarked Lady Custerd.
"I am a philosopher," he replied.
She seemed skeptical.
"Does that really help one to feel happy?" she inquired.
"You have just quoted an instance."
Her eyes made a circuit of the park and garden and then turned on him reprovingly.
"But you have no excuse for being discontented."
He waved his hand to indicate the scene.
"If I were not prohibited by the injunctions of my grudging forefathers from cutting down my timber, if the market price of venison made those brutes worth the expense of keeping 'em, and if I had the moral courage to convert these flower-beds into a vegetable garden I should be a well-to-do man. It is philosophy alone that enables me to make these reflections as seldom as possible."
"Oh, but Raymes, you would never dream of doing anything of the kind!"
"I have dreamt, but always awakened to bleak reality."
He looked at her steadily and added: "And then there is Tony."
Lady Custerd turned upon him with a touch of indignation.
"Tony hasn't done anything he shouldn't for a long time now!"
"For quite six months," he agreed.
"Well, what do you think of that?"
"Very ominous."
"Raymes!" she exclaimed. "What on earth do you mean?"
"Do you remember our once contemplating with a shiver those foolhardy peasants cultivating the slopes of Vesuvius?"
"Perfectly. But what"
"An eruption must be almost due."
Lady Custerd deemed this scarcely fair. Her nephew had passed through the perils of a three years' residence at Oxford with several intervals of irreproachable conduct. All things considered, that might be called a creditable record; and as soon as Commem week was over the dear boy was returning at last to the seat of his ancestors. The occasion was surely one for joy, rather than criticism. "Of course it is a pity he hasn't taken a degree," she admitted.
His father smiled.
"He was sent to Oxford to avoid the risk."
Lady Custerd looked startled.
"But, surely, it could have done him no harm!"
"Think what it might have done the degree. There are critics abroad already, I believe."
She regarded him austerely.
"I do not pretend to understand you when you talk in this strain. But, surely, you will be glad to see your boy again?"
"Yes," he said, "he is all right to look at—the back view especially."
"Is that all you have to say!"
"No," he admitted, "I must confess frankly that I am both relieved and surprised to find Tony escaping from Oxford with only one entanglement and a paltry five hundred pounds' worth of bills. I hope, Gwendolen, you do not think me superstitious, but I assure you that ever since that poor boy exchanged his first pocket-knife for a brown-paper parcel with nothing inside, I have had a premonition that he would never be Lord Chancellor of England."
But there are plenty of other good positions," Lady Custerd began, when she was interrupted by the appearance of a footman with a telegram.
"No answer," said Lord Raymes. He dismissed the footman and gazed thoughtfully into space.
"The next blow has fallen," he observed in a few minutes.
"What blow? On whom?" she exclaimed.
"Tony; on me," he replied.
"Is that from him?"
He read the wire aloud:
"But he says good news!" she cried.
"He thought there was something in the brown-paper parcel," he answered.
As he spoke he rose and turned toward the house.
"But, of course, you'll go?" she asked.
"I cannot escape my fate by merely staying at home," he answered. "I must now go and pack."
"Then you are going to spend the night?"
"No."
"What are you taking with you then?"
"My check-book."
Half an hour later his lordship drove to the station, and in the early afternoon arrived at the ancient city of Oxford. As he passed through a quadrangle of his son's college he observed in a group of sunshades evidences of Commem.
"Ah, woman, woman!" he murmured.
Tony's door was opened by the devoted Algernon.
"Tony in?" his parent inquired.
"Not at this moment, but—er—I've been waiting for you all day."
"Ever since breakfast?"
"Practically."
"That was Tony's idea, I presume?"
"Yes."
"I know his handiwork," said Lord Raymes amiably. "He sent off his wire at ten-fifeen, and I suppose told you to expect me any time after nine-forty-five."