Book 6 Chapter 3

COELEBS, quid agam?*--HORACE.

* "What shall I do, a bachelor?"

IN a room at Fenton's Hotel sat Lord Vargrave and Caroline Lady Doltimore,--two months after the marriage of the latter.

"Doltimore has positively fixed, then, to go abroad on your return from Cornwall?"

"Positively,--to Paris. You can join us at Christmas, I trust?"

"I have no doubt of it; and before then I hope that I shall have arranged certain public matters, which at present harass and absorb me even more than my private affairs."

"You have managed to obtain terms with Mr. Douce, and to delay the repayment of your debt to him?"

"Yes, I hope so, till I touch Miss Cameron's income; which will be mine, I trust, by the time she is eighteen."

"You mean the forfeit money of thirty thousand pounds?"

"Not I; I mean what I said!"

"Can you really imagine she will still accept your hand?"

"With your aid, I do imagine it! Hear me. You must take Evelyn with you to Paris. I have no doubt but that she will be delighted to accompany you; nay, I have paved the way so far. For, of course, as a friend of the family, and guardian to Evelyn, I have maintained a correspondence with Lady Vargrave. She informs me that Evelyn has been unwell and low-spirited; that she fears Brook-Green is dull for her, etc. I wrote, in reply, to say that the more my ward saw of the world, prior to her accession, when of age, to the position she would occupy in it, the more she would fulfil my late uncle's wishes with respect to her education and so forth. I added that as you were going to Paris, and as you loved her so much, there could not be a better opportunity for her entrance into life under the most favourable auspices. Lady Vargrave's answer to this letter arrived this morning: she will consent to such an arrangement should you propose it."