"Lord Charles Delagrange was my partner. Do you know him?"
His face changed. "He's my uncle, I'm sorry to say," he said stiffly. "But if I were to meet him in the street I should look the other way. He's a swab of the first water."
"He seems cheerful enough," I said, "and enjoys his life thoroughly, to all appearances."
"I dare say he does. But there must be times when he asks himself whether the company he keeps is worth the price he pays for it. He can't get any other. I shouldn't think there's a servants' hall in the country that would be open to him now."
"I suppose the best society in the place is to be found in the servants' hall."
"Of course it is--the best female society. You must come and dine with us one night here. We'll give you a very poor dinner."
"Not at all. Of course, it's a little different in this house. We have to keep up the farce, and we don't like to put people like the Perrys out. We generally choose a night for our parties when they are dining out. In other houses you can just tell them upstairs that there won't be any regular dinner for them, when you think of having guests of your own."
At that moment Edward came into the room, and Lord Arthur left us, saying that he must go and help Mr. Blother with the table.
Edward seemed a trifle disturbed. "I say," he said, "what is all this about your being a Highlander?"
"Well, Miss Miriam and I settled it between ourselves that England must be in the Highlands somewhere," I explained.
He looked at me with some suspicion. "It's all very well to have a joke," he said, "and the story you made up to me was certainly very ingenious and amusing, though highly absurd. But I don't think you ought to want to keep it up any longer. It amused Miriam, but there's always the danger, where a young girl lives in such surroundings as these, that she may get a taste for luxury. You ought not to make it out to her that people could live anywhere in the way you pretend without disgrace. It is apt to confound right and wrong."
"My dear fellow," I said, "I quite see your point. But Miss Miriam is so level-headed that I am sure she would never be affected in that way."
"Perhaps not," he said. "Still, I think it is time you dropped it. Of course, I shouldn't dream of asking you where you really do come from, if you don't want to tell me. It is quite obvious that you are well-born and well-educated, and that is enough for me."