The visit, however, began very successfully. As he had no _arrière pensée_, he was quite at his ease with the old people whom he neither meant to sweep away nor to succeed. He received, quite naturally, the long and elaborate apologies of Lady Piercey in respect to her son. “Gervase will be very sorry to miss you, Gerald,--he’s in town; there is not much to amuse a young man in the country at this season of the year. He’s not fond of garden parties and so forth, the only things that are going on, and not many of them yet. He prefers town. Perhaps it isn’t to be wondered at. We have all liked to see a little life in our day.” What “life” could it have been that Lady Piercey in her day had liked to see? the new-comer asked himself, with an involuntary smile. But he took the explanation with the easiest good humour, thinking no evil. “Lucky fellow!” he said; “he has the best of it. I was out in India all my young time, and saw only a very different kind of life.” “Come,” said Sir Giles, “you amuse yourselves pretty well out there. Don’t give yourself airs, Gerald.” “Oh, yes; we amuse ourselves more or less,” he said, with a pleasant laugh. “Enough to make us envy a young swell like Gervase, who, I suppose, has all the world at his feet and nothing to do.” There was a strange pause in the room; a sort of furtive look between the ladies; a sound--he could not tell what--from Sir Giles. Colonel Piercey had a faint comprehension that he had, as he said to himself, put his foot in it. What had he said that was not the right thing to say? He caught Margaret’s eye, and there was a warning in it, a sort of appeal; but he had not an idea what its meaning was. “I am sure,” said Lady Piercey, with a voice out of which she vainly endeavoured to keep the little break and whimper which was habitual to her when she was moved, “my boy might have all the world at his feet--if he was that kind, Gerald. But he’s not that kind; he’s of a different sort. He takes things in a---- in a kind of philosophical way.” “Humph!” said Sir Giles, pushing back his chair. “Meg, Gerald will not mind if I have my backgammon. I’m an old fogey, you see, my boy, with long days to get through, and not able to get out. I’m past amusement. I only kill the time as well as I can now.” “I’m very fond of a game of backgammon, too, Uncle Giles.” “Are you, boy? why, that’s something like. Meg, I’ll give you a holiday. Ladies are very nice, but they never know the rules of a game,” the ungrateful old gentleman said. CHAPTER XVI.