The next morning, while at breakfast, he received a little note from
Lady Angleford, asking him to dinner that night. It was a charming
little note, as pleading and deprecating as her eyes had been when she
looked at him at the Northgates'.

Drake sent back word that he would be delighted to come, and at eight
o'clock presented himself at his uncle's house in Park Lane. Lord
Angleford was, like Northgate, detained in London by official business.
He was a very fine specimen of the old kind of Tory, and, though well
advanced in years, still extremely good-looking--the whole family was
favored in that way--and remarkably well preserved. His hair was white,
but his eyes were bright and his cheeks ruddy, and, when free from the
gout, he was as active as a young man. Of course, he was hot-tempered;
all gouty men are; but he was as charming in his way as Lady Angleford,
and extremely popular in the House of Lords, and out of it.

Though he had fallen in love with a pretty little American, perhaps he
would not have married her but for the little tiff with Drake; but that
little tiff had just turned the scale, and, though he had taken the step
in a moment of pique, he had not regretted it; for he was very fond and
proud of his wife. But he was also very fond and proud of Drake, and was
extremely pleased when Lady Angleford had told him that she had met
Drake, and was going to ask him to dinner.