The smile touched his lips; he murmured: “No! The only idea I have of you, ma’am, is that you are a woman of great good sense.”

As he turned away from her, Julian, whose attention had been diverted by a question addressed to him by Mr Wingham, demanded gaily: “Are you talking secrets? When do you mean to go Yorkshire?”

“I haven’t decided the precise date, but sometime next week. I shall be travelling post, of course.”

The expression of disappointment on Julian’s face was ludicrous enough to make even his ruffled mother smile. He exclaimed impulsively: “Oh, no! You can’t wish to be shut up in a stuffy chaise for—Oh, you’re trying to gammon me, are you? Waldo, you’re a—you’re a—”

“Gull-catcher,” supplied George, on the broad grin.

Julian accepted this blithely. “Yes, and a regular dryboots! Curricle, Waldo, or phaeton?”

“I don’t see how we can go by either when I’ve no horses stabled on the Great North Road.” objected Waldo.

But Julian was not to be hoaxed twice. He retorted that if his cousin was such a nip-farthing as to grudge the expense of sending his cattle forward they would either hire job-horses, or proceed by such easy stages as could be managed by one team.

“I like young Lindeth,” said George, when, presently, he walked with his cousin in the direction of Bond Street. “A very good sort of a boy: nothing of the rum ’un about him! But as for Laurence—! Upon my word, Waldo, I wonder that you should bear with him as you do! Well, I was used to think him more flash than foolish, but after listening to his damned insolence today I think him the most buffleheaded clunch I ever saw in my life!