Captain Verinder, in view of the unaccountable dislike which Sir Gilbert Clare had conceived for him, kept strictly within the limits of the line of conduct which he had laid down for himself. The Chase itself he never went near, but on one evening in each week, when he knew that Giovanna was not dining with the Baronet, he ran down by the train which reached Mapleford at seven o’clock, driving from the station to Maylings in a fly, and walking back in time to catch the last up train. When Giovanna, before her arrival at Maylings, put into her uncle’s hands the cheque given her by Sir Gilbert, with a request that he would get it cashed for her, he made up his mind that ten pounds out of the hundred should find their way into his own pocket, as representing his modest commission on the very clever stroke of business which he had just succeeded in bringing to so fortunate a termination. He would give her further to understand that he should look forward to being allowed a similar sum out of each quarterly cheque of which his niece would henceforward be the recipient. But when, without a word or a hint on his part, Giovanna put into his hands, not ten, but twenty pounds of the hundred, he determined to wait and see what the next quarter would do for him; for it seemed not unlikely that he might benefit more by trusting to her generosity than by putting forward anything in the shape of a definite claim on his own account. Certainly, forty, or even eighty pounds a year was not a very magnificent sum: still, it would make an acceptable addition to his limited income; besides which, he looked forward to squeezing a further allowance out of Luigi. Of course, when in the not distant future, as he trusted, Luigi should have become Sir Lewis Clare, with a rent-roll of something like eight thousand a year (for there was little doubt, unless he should make a consummate ass of himself meanwhile, that his grandfather would constitute him his heir), then indeed matters would assume a very different aspect so far as he, Augustus Verinder, was concerned. Meanwhile it was the day of small things and he must content himself as best he could to play a waiting game. CHAPTER XXVII. “MR. LEWIS CLARE” Twice in each week, on Sunday and Wednesday, Giovanna dined at the Chase. It was a standing invitation which included Mrs. Tew, while Everard Lisle made a frequent fifth at the table. Luigi was there as a matter of course. With his acknowledgment of his grandson and his daughter-in-law a fresh element had been imported into Sir Gilbert’s life; but settled habits had too strong a hold upon him, and the groove in which he habitually moved had been trodden by him for too many years to allow of much deviation on his part, even under circumstances so exceptional as those the evolution of which we have thus far followed.