Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/48

SOPHY OF KRAVONIA "How could we better employ this last day of our visit? You'll drive us over, Percival?"

"No, thank you, Mr. Pindar," said the young man, resolute in wisdom. "I'll send you over, if you like."

"I'll come with you," said Pikes. "But how account for ourselves? Old Brownlow is unknown to us."

"If Percival had been going, I'd have had nothing to do with it, but I don't mind taking you two old sillies," said Lady Margaret. "I wanted to pay a call on Elizabeth Brownlow anyhow. We were at school together once. But I won't guarantee you a sight of the kitchen-maid."

"It's a pretty drive—for this part of the country," observed Dunstanbury.

"It may well become your favorite road," smiled Mr. Pindar, benevolently.

"And since Lady Meg goes with us, it's already ours," added Mr. Pikes, gallantly.

So they used to go on—for hours at a time, as Dunstanbury has declared—both at Hazleby when they were there, and at Lady Meg's house in Berkeley Square, where they almost always were. They were pleased to consider themselves politicians—Pikes a Whig, twenty years behind date, Pindar a Tory, two hundred. It was all an affectation—assumed for the purpose, but with the very doubtful result of amusing Lady Meg. To Dunstanbury the two old waifs—for waifs of the sea of society they were, for all that each had a sufficient income to his name and a reputable life behind him—were sheerly tiresome—and there seems little ground to differ from his opinion. But they were old family friends, and he endured with his usual graciousness.

Their patroness—they would hardly have gibed at 30