Sylvester Read Free

pause there to tell him that she was now going to leave him to chat with his mama, adding: ‘For I am sure you wish to be private with her, don’t you?’
    ‘I do, but how you guessed it, cousin, I can’t imagine!’ he replied.
    ‘Oh!’ declared Miss Penistone gaily, ‘a pretty thing it would be if I didn’t know, after all these years, just what you like! Well I will run away, then—but you should not trouble to open the door for me! That is to treat me like a stranger! I am for ever telling you so, am I not? But you are always so obliging!’
    He bowed, and shut the door behind her. The Duchess said: ‘An undeserved compliment, Sylvester. My dear, how came you to speak as you did? It was not kind.’
    ‘Her folly is intolerable!’ he said impatiently. ‘Why do you keep such a hubble-bubble woman about you? She must vex you past bearing!’
    ‘She is not very wise, certainly,’ admitted the Duchess. ‘But I couldn’t send her away, you know!’
    ‘Shall I do so for you?’
    She was startled, but, supposing that he was speaking out of an unthinking exasperation, only said: ‘Nonsensical boy! You know you could no more do so than I could!’
    He raised his brows. ‘Of course I could do it, Mama! What should stop me?’
    ‘You cannot be serious!’ she exclaimed, half inclined still to laugh at him.
    ‘But I’m perfectly serious, my dear! Be frank with me! Don’t you wish her at Jericho?’
    She said, with a rueful twinkle: ‘Well, yes—sometimes I do! Don’t repeat that, will you? I have at least the grace to be ashamed of myself!’ She perceived that his expression was one of surprise, and said in a serious tone: ‘Of course it vexes you, and me too, when she says silly things, and hasn’t the tact to go away when you come to visit me, but I promise you I think myself fortunate to have her. It can’t be very amusing to be tied to an invalid, you know, but she is never hipped or out of temper, and whatever I ask her to do for me she does willingly, and so cheerfully that she puts me in danger of believing that she enjoys being at my beck and call.’
    ‘So I should hope!’
    ‘Now, Sylvester—’
    ‘My dear Mama, she has hung on your sleeve ever since I can remember, and a pretty generous sleeve it has been! You have always made her an allowance far beyond what you would have paid a stranger hired to bear you company, haven’t you?’
    ‘You speak as though you grudged it!’
    ‘No more than I grudge the wages of my valet, if you think her worth it. I pay large wages to my servants, but I keep none in my employment who doesn’t earn his wage.’
    There was a troubled look in the eyes that searched his face, but the Duchess only said: ‘The cases are not the same, but don’t let us brangle about it! You may believe that it would make me very unhappy to lose Augusta. Indeed, I don’t know how I should go on.’
    ‘If that’s the truth, Mama, you need say no more. Do you suppose I wouldn’t pay anyone you wished to keep about you double—treble—what you pay Augusta?’ He saw her stretch out her hand to him, and went to her immediately. ‘You know I wouldn’t do anything you don’t like! Don’t look so distressed, dearest!’
    She pressed his hand. ‘I know you wouldn’t. Don’t heed me! It is only that it shocked me a little to hear you speak so hardly. But no one has less cause to complain of hardness in you than I, my darling.’
    ‘Nonsense!’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘Keep your tedious cousin, love—but allow me to wish that you had with you someone who could entertain you better—enter into what interests you!’
    ‘Well, I have Ianthe,’ she reminded him. ‘She doesn’t precisely enter into my interests, but we go on very comfortably together.’
    ‘I am happy to hear it. But it begins to seem as if you won’t have the doubtful comfort of her society for much longer.’
    ‘My dear, if you are going to suggest that I should employ a second lady to keep