"Why, my dear Tony," said she, rising, and parting his hair tenderly on his forehead, "I did n't look for you here to-night; how came it that you left the Abbey at this hour?"
"Wasn't it a very good hour to come home?" answered he, curtly. "We dined at eight; I left at half-past eleven. Nothing very unusual in all that."
"But you always slept there; you had that nice room you told me of."
"Well, I preferred coming home. I suppose that was reason enough."
"What has happened, Tony darling? Tell me frankly and fearlessly what it is that has ruffled you. Who has such a right to know it, or, if need be, to sympathize with you, as your own dear mother?"
"How you run on, mother, and all about nothing! I dine out, and I come back a little earlier than my wont, and immediately you find out that some one has outraged or insulted me."
"Oh, no, no. I never dreamed of that, my dear boy!" said she, coloring deeply.
"Well, there's enough about it," said he, pacing the room with hasty strides. "What is that you were saying the other day about a Mr. Elphinstone,--that he was an old friend of my father's, and that they had chummed together long ago?"
"All these scrawls that you see there," said she, pointing to the table, "have been attempts to write to him, Tony. I was trying to ask him to give you some sort of place somewhere."
"The very thing I want, mother," said he, with a half-bitter laugh,--"some sort of place somewhere."
"And," continued she, "I was pondering whether it might not be as well to see if Sir Arthur Lyle would n't write to some of his friends in power--"
"Why should we ask him? What has he to do with it?" broke he in, hastily. "I 'm not the son of an old steward or family coachman, that I want to go about with a black pocket-book stuffed with recommendatory letters. Write simply and fearlessly to this great man,--I don't know his rank,--and say whose son I am. Leave me to tell him the rest."
"My dear Tony, you little know how such people are overwhelmed with such-like applications, and what slight chance there is that you will be distinguished from the rest."
"At all events, I shall not have the humiliation of a patron. If he will do anything for me, it will be for the sake of my father's memory, and I need not be ashamed of that."