And afterwards, if he had felt his evening a pleasant one, if he had sung all he knew, if Mrs. Deane had been more than usually loving and self-surrendering, and I had distinguished myself by skilfully turning over the leaves when her mother had played the piano, he would tell me, as we walked home together, that I "did credit to his name, and that I would make an excellent figure in the world as soon as I had _decrasse_ myself; that I must get another dress-suit from his tailor, just an eighth of an inch longer in the tails; that I should have a commission in his old regiment (the Eleventeenth Royal Bounders), a deuced crack cavalry regiment; and see the world and break a few hearts (it is not for nothing that our friends have pretty wives and sisters); and finally marry some beautiful young heiress of title, and make a home for him when he was a poor solitary old fellow. Very little would do for him: a crust of bread, a glass of wine and water, and a clean napkin, a couple of rooms, and an old piano and a few good books. For, of course, Ibbetson Hall would be mine and every penny he possessed in the world." [Illustration:] All this in confidential French--lest the very clouds should hear us--and with the familiar thee and thou of blood-relationship, which I did not care to return. It did not seem to bode very serious intentions towards Mrs. Deane, and would scarcely have pleased her mother. Or else, if something had crossed him, and Mrs. Deane had flirted outrageously with somebody else, and he had not been asked to sing (or somebody else had), he would assure me in good round English that I was the most infernal lout that ever disgraced a drawing-room, or ate a man out of house and home, and that he was sick and ashamed of me. "Why can't you sing, you d--d French milksop? The d--d roulade-monger of a father of yours could sing fast enough, if he could do nothing else, confound him! Why can't you talk French, you infernal British booby? Why can't you hand round the tea and muffins, confound you! Why, twice Mrs. Glyn dropped her pocket-handkerchief and had to pick it up herself! What, 'at the other end of the room,' were you? Well, you should have skipped _across_ the room, and picked it up, and handed it to her with a pretty speech, like a gentleman! When I was your age I was _always_ on the lookout for ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs to drop--or their fans! I never missed _one_!" Then he would take me out to shoot with him (for it was quite essential that an English gentleman should be a sportsman)--a terrible ordeal to both of us.