“Nor I, Sir; you are perfectly right, as you always are. I may have liked horses too much in my younger days--not wisely, but too well, perhaps--we all have some weakness; but I hope since I took orders there has been nothing to object to,” said the Rector, looking his astonished uncle full in the face, with mild defiance. And what could Sir John say thus boldly encountered? “Poor Gerald is a wretched invalid,” he continued, “sick of everything. I never saw such a _blasé_ washed out being. He has had too much of what people call life, and he’s tired enough of it all. They think at home that his health depends upon keeping him amused--that’s why I went,” said Bertie, with all the innocence imaginable. “We’ve all got to amuse him, and you might just as well try to amuse this table. He is bored to death with everything. But then, he always was my father’s favourite, and he can do no wrong.” There was a pause, for this Gerald, the eldest son, who was bored with everything, and in bad health, and possessed every attribute disliked by Sir John, was, failing Arthur, the heir presumptive of Oakley; and this passed through the minds of all the party, bringing a pang of unhappiness with it, as the Rector knew it would do. “Is he likely to marry I wonder?” said Sir John. “That is the only foolish thing he has omitted to do. It is far from being a foolish thing with most people; but with him, worn out in body and mind, old before his time--and without a penny, why should he marry?” “I am not so sure of that,” said Sir John, with a sigh; and then he broke out hastily with an exclamation and question, in which a stranger would have seen little coherence. “Lord, what a strange world it is! How many boys are there of the Seymours?” he said. That was the bitterest thought to them. Young Seymour to marry somebody so very suitable, and failing him, if he had not married, half-a-dozen boys to succeed! whereas Arthur had put himself out of court, and made all succession in the direct line impossible; and there were only Anthony’s sons to follow. Anthony’s sons! the thought was gall and wormwood to them both. Gerald, a worn out young _roué_, and Bertie; one of them must come after Arthur, who had cut off himself, or at least cut off all following, all blessings of succession. And such a suitable marriage as young Seymour had made! What wonder if it went to their hearts. “I’ve seen Durant at Epsom too,” said the Rector, forgetting, for the moment, his own line of self-defence; “he’s very much about, I think; here and there, and wherever one goes. Men of his class lay themselves out to please; they have more motive, I suppose, than men of more assured position.” “Mr. Durant,” said Lady Curtis, hotly, “lays himself out, if you like the expression, Bertie, to be of use to his friends. He has got from his Maker one of the kindest hearts that ever beat, and consequently he is welcome wherever he is known.”