"His lordship was very sorry not to see you, Mr. Roger, and his
lordship left a note for you. Mr. Osborne took it, I think, when
he passed through. I asked his lordship if he would like to see Mr.
Osborne, who was indoors, as I thought. But his lordship said he was
pressed for time, and told me to make his excuses."
"Didn't he ask for me?" growled the Squire.
"No, sir; I can't say as his lordship did. He would never have
thought of Mr. Osborne, sir, if I hadn't named him. It was Mr. Roger
he seemed so keen after."
"Very odd," said the Squire. Roger said nothing, although he
naturally felt some curiosity. He went into the drawing-room, not
quite aware that his father was following him. Osborne sate at a
table near the fire, pen in hand, looking over one of his poems, and
dotting the i's, crossing the t's, and now and then pausing over
the alteration of a word.
"Oh, Roger!" he said, as his brother came in, "here's been Lord
Hollingford wanting to see you."
"I know," replied Roger.
"And he's left a note for you. Robinson tried to persuade him it was
for my father, so he's added a 'junior' (Roger Hamley, Esq., junior)
in pencil." The Squire was in the room by this time, and what he had
overheard rubbed him up still more the wrong way. Roger took his
unopened note and read it.
"What does he say?" asked the Squire.
Roger handed him the note. It contained an invitation to dinner to
meet M. Geoffroi St. H----, whose views on certain subjects Roger had
been advocating in the article Lord Hollingford had spoken about to
Molly, when he danced with her at the Hollingford ball. M. Geoffroi
St. H---- was in England now, and was expected to pay a visit at
the Towers in the course of the following week. He had expressed a
wish to meet the author of the paper which had already attracted the
attention of the French comparative anatomists; and Lord Hollingford
added a few words as to his own desire to make the acquaintance of a
neighbour whose tastes were so similar to his own; and then followed
a civil message from Lord and Lady Cumnor.
Lord Hollingford's hand was cramped and rather illegible. The squire
could not read it all at once, and was enough put out to decline any
assistance in deciphering it. At last he made it out.
"So my lord lieutenant is taking some notice of the Hamleys at last.
The election is coming on, is it? But I can tell him we're not to be
got so easily. I suppose this trap is set for you, Osborne? What's
this you've been writing that the French mounseer is so taken with?"