"Really, Lady Broadway!" flustered Marmaduke.
"Rather crude, I admit," continued his hostess, "but I object to beating about the bush, especially when I want to get inside. The fact is, Marmaduke, I have heard from your father----"
"It is good of you to read his letters; they are not----" began the son stiffly.
"Don't be silly, my dear lad," went on the old woman, "your father has his faults, but he was quite as good-looking as a young man as you are--at any rate, I thought so. Now, he wants you to marry, and he has every reason to wish it. It is the only chance of an heir to the title, for Peter's last escapade has about finished his hopes in that quarter."
"I can't discuss----" began Marmaduke very stiff.
"Oh, yes, you can!" went on the old lady imperturbably. "We are _en petit comité_, and I'll confess to being old, very old, old enough to be your great-grandmother. Now, Marmaduke, a great-great-grandmother--did I put in the two greats the first time?--can talk over things more sensibly than even a great-great-grandfather. You see, my dear, she has passed through it all and left it all behind her. And so, my dear child--I nursed you as a baby, remember--why don't you marry? Or perhaps you are married already?"
There was an exquisite lightness of raillery in the suggestion which absolutely barred offence, and there was kindness in the keen old eyes. Nevertheless, Marmaduke was uncomfortably aware that they took in his sudden flush. She gave him no time for interruption, however, and went on airily--
"For all I know the heir may already be in existence!" Here Marmaduke asserted himself with great dignity. "My dear madam, if I had any children I should acknowledge them!"
Louisa Lady Broadway smiled gently. She had gained one piece of knowledge, anyhow. The obstruction, if there was one, was a childless wife.
"I am glad to hear it, my dear, but I knew you had a good heart, or I wouldn't have risked speaking to you. I wouldn't do as much for one in a thousand. Now, my dear, I am nearly eighty years old, and I understand things as perhaps few women do understand them. I don't expect many men have lived to be your age without forming ties of some kind, especially if they live in Scotland, Marmaduke"--the thrust went home again, she thought--"but money does a lot, especially when there are no children. A good round annuity means much when a man is not well off, as you are, and has probably to wait for many years ere he falls into money--as you have, for Pitt is the heir, of course. But your father would find the cash----"