“Tell me anything you wish, my dear Martin!” said Gervase encouragingly.

His young relative was not unnaturally smitten to silence, and stood glaring at him. The Dowager said in a voice of displeasure: “I have the greatest dislike of such trifling talk as this. I shall make you known to Miss Morville, St. Erth.”

Bows were exchanged; the Earl murmured that he was happy to make Miss Morville’s acquaintance; and Miss Morville, accepting the civility with equanimity, pointed out to him, in a helpful spirit, that Abney was still waiting to relieve him of his driving-coat.

“Of course — yes!” said Gervase, allowing the butler to help him out of his coat, and standing revealed in all the fashionable elegance of dove-coloured pantaloons, and a silver-buttoned coat of blue superfine. A quizzing-glass hung on a black riband round his neck, and he raised this to one eye, seeming to observe, for the first time, the knee-breeches worn by his brother and his cousin, and the glory of his stepmother’s low-cut gown of purple satin. “Oh, I am afraid I have kept you waiting for me!” he said apologetically. “Now what is to be done? Will you permit me, ma’am, to sit down to dinner in all my dirt, or shall I change my clothes while your dinner spoils?”

“It would take you an hour, I daresay!” Martin remarked, with a curling lip.

“Oh, more than that!” replied Gervase gravely.

“I am not, in general, an advocate for a man’s sitting down to dine in his walking-dress,” announced the Dowager. “I consider such a practice slovenly, and slovenliness I abhor! In certain cases it may be thought, however, to be allowable. We will dine immediately, Abney.”

The Earl, taking up a position before the fire, beside his brother, drew a Sevres snuff-box from his pocket, and, opening it with a dexterous flick of his thumb, took a pinch of the mixture it contained, and raised it to one nostril. An unusual signet-ring, which he wore, and which seemed, at one moment, dull and dark, and at another, when he moved his hand so that the ring caught the light, to glow with green fire, attracted his stepmother’s attention. “What is that ring you have upon your finger, St. Erth?” she demanded. “It appears to me to be a signet!”