"Solomon in petticoats!" cried Basil, gaily, and Marion joined in his laugh.
That conversation gave Lady Carruthers many uneasy moments. She understood so well the dreamy, yet ardent, romantic temperament of the boy.
"What shall I make of him?" she said. "Will he ever learn to live contentedly here at Ulverston, doing his duty, as Marion says, to God and man? My poor Basil, he lives too late!"
She asked advice from those best fitted to give it. One and all said the same thing; there would be nothing so useful for him as a tour on the Continent, seeing plenty of the world and going into society.
So Lady Carruthers, who loved home very dearly, gave up its peaceful tranquillity, and went with Basil and Miss Hautville to Paris, where they remained some months until they saw all that was most brilliant in that brilliant capital; from there to Berlin; then on to Vienna, and Basil lost much of his dreamy nature.
He was eager, ardent, impetuous, longing, as is the fashion of young men, to do brave deeds, to be a great hero, and not in the least knowing what to do.
He was just twenty when they returned home, at the commencement of the year; Lady Carruthers, worn out with travel and excitement, longing for rest. There was more to be done--her son had been presented at most of the courts of Europe; he must attend the first levees held in London this season.
The Carruthers had a magnificent mansion in Belgravia. Miss Hautville begged for one year more of seclusion and privacy, so that Lady Hildegarde and her son went to London alone. She remained there for a week, and then, finding her son afloat in London society, she returned to Ulverston.
And Basil Carruthers, the dreamy, ardent, romantic boy, remained in London alone.
Perhaps Lady Carruthers never did a more unwise thing than when she left her son, with his peculiar temperament and notions, to go through a London season alone. She honestly believed herself to be doing right. She was ill and unable to bear the whirl of fashion and gaiety. She could not withdraw him from town to spend the gayest month of the year in seclusion.
"Leave him to me, Hildegarde," said her cousin, Colonel Mostyn. "I will pilot him safely through the rocks and deep waters; nothing makes a man as self-reliant as feeling that he is trusted entirely."