Sir Reginald was seated with his crutch-handled stick beside him, and an easy fur slipper on his gouty foot, which rested on a stool, and was a great deal better. He leaned back in a cushioned arm-chair, and his fierce prominent eyes glanced across the room, in the direction of his son, with a flash like a scimitar's. "There's no good, you know, David, in exposing one's ulcers to strangers--there's no use in plaguing one's guests with family quarrels." "Upon my word, you disguised this one admirably, for I mistook you for two people on tolerably friendly terms." "I don't want to plague Wynderbroke about the puppy; there is no need to mention that he has made so much unhappiness. _You_ won't, neither will I." David nodded. "Something has gone wrong with him," said David Arden, "and I thought you might possibly know." "Not I." "I think he has lost money on the races to-day," said David. "I hope to Heaven he has! I'm glad of it. It will do me good; let him settle it out of his blackguard _post-obit_," snarled Sir Reginald, and ground his teeth. "If he has been gambling, he has disappointed me. He can, however, disappoint me but once. I had better thoughts of him." So said David Arden, with displeasure in his frank and manly face. "Playing? Of course he plays, and of course he's been making a blundering book for the Derby. He likes the hazard-table and the turf, he likes play, and he likes making books; and what he likes he does. He always did. I'm rather pleased you have been trying to manage him. You'll find him a charming person, and you'll understand what I have had to combat with. He'll never do any good; he is so utterly graceless." "I see my father looking at me, and I know what he means," said Richard Arden, with a smile, to Lady May; "I'm to go and talk to Miss Maubray. He wishes to please Uncle David, and Miss Maubray must be talked to; and I see that Uncle David envies me my little momentary happiness, and meditates taking that empty chair beside you. You'll see whether I am right. By Jove! here he comes; I sha'n't be turned away so----" "Oh, but, really, Miss Maubray has been quite alone," urged poor Lady May, very much pleased; "and you _must_, to please _me_; I'm sure you will." Instantly he arose. "I don't know whether that speech is most kind or _un_-kind; you banish me, but in language so flattering to my loyalty, that I don't know whether to be pleased or pained. Of course I obey." He said these parting words in a very low tone, and had hardly ended them, when David Arden took the vacant chair beside the good lady, and began to talk with her. Once or twice his eyes wandered to Richard Arden, who was by this time talking with returning animation to Grace Maubray, and the look was not cheerful. The young lady, however, was soon interested, and her good-humour was clever and exhilarating. I think that she a little admired this handsome and rather clever young man, and who can tell what such a fancy may grow to?