"About half-past five," consulting a little watch fastened to her gown. "You can endure my company till then."
"I shall try to. But am I not keeping you from afternoon calls or something? I saw a carriage at the door as I came in."
"I have sent it away. I was rejoiced to do it. Papa will be simply wild with delight at your falling from the clouds like this."
"How should he? The only drawback about Carrickmoyle has been that we could see from it the cold chimneys of Glengall."
"Ah! we shall warm them," said Lord Glengall, beaming at her. "We shall have fine jinks if only you and your father will spend six months of the year at Carrickmoyle. I am no Londoner, and never shall be. But I shall be able to endure six months of solitude if I know I am going to have you for the remainder of the year."
"You will not long be left solitary. You cheated the country the last time by disappearing again before it had had time to rejoice over you. Your return will flutter the dovecotes for thirty miles around."
"You are very kind, Sylvia," said Lord Glengall simply. "But you have not told me half the news," he went on. "How is Molly?"
"Flourishing. Mick has got his company. He wouldn't leave the service on any consideration, and I think he was right. They are as much in love with each other as ever; and they have a beautiful boy."
"Ah! that is right. Molly deserved to be happy."
"She did, and so did Mick. Mick is a dear old fellow."
"Pam, too, is a success. She has been a beauty for three seasons, strange to say."
"Perfectly happy. They are ideally well suited."
"I am glad of that. How does Pam get on with her mother-in-law?"
"Fairly well, I believe. Lady Jane keeps herself to herself, which is lucky for Pam. I never took to that lady. But she is devoted to the heir. She wouldn't strike you, somehow, as a grandmotherly person, but it is so."
"Yes; he is two years old, and he has a baby sister of seven months."
"Ah! how you young people have been making history since I left. I shall not know this new world of your making."
"Still greedy for conquest, even though it is only an old fogey?"
"Ah!"--with more intensity than he thought the occasion demanded--"you never can be that!"
"You are always kind, little girl. When I look into your eyes, I fancy it is the old Sylvia I am talking to, and not a fine lady."