There would be nothing unusual in such a match: no need at all for his lordship to marry a vulgar mushroom’s heiress. Mr Wimmering could call to mind a dozen very gentlemanly persons engaged in trade who were anxious to thrust their offspring up the social ladder; but, on the whole, he was inclined to think that the ideal bride should be sought in one or other of the great banking-houses. That would be quite unexceptionable. The chances were, too, that unless the girl was very hard to please she would take a fancy to his lordship. He was a good-looking young man, though not handsome in his father’s slightly flamboyant style. His was a thin, sensitive countenance, rendered charming by his smile, which was of peculiar sweetness. He looked older than his twenty-six years, his face being a little lined through constant puckering of his eyes against a scorching sun, and his skin rather weather-beaten. He was of average height, well-built, but lacking his father’s magnificent physique: indeed, had it not been for a certain tautness in his carriage, betraying the muscles in his spare frame, it might have been suspected that he was delicate, so thin was he. When he walked it was with a slight halt, but that legacy from Salamanca did not seem to discommode him much. He was lucky not to have had his leg amputated, though it was doubtful if he had thought so at the time. Wimmering did not know how many agonizing operations he had been obliged to undergo before the surgeons succeeded in extracting the ball and all the splinters of bone, but he thought that those weeks had set their ineradicable mark on his lordship’s face.

He did not again mention the marriage-scheme, but devoted himself instead to the task of guiding the Viscount through the tangled maze of his father’s affairs.