"
"We don't know anything of this fellow. Two weeks ago we didn't
know he was on the earth."
"What do we need to know beyond his name?"
Mr. Pett said nothing, but he was not convinced. The Lord
Wisbeach under discussion was a pleasant-spoken and presentable
young man who had called at Mr. Pett's office a short while
before to consult him about investing some money. He had brought
a letter of introduction from Hammond Chester, Ann's father, whom
he had met in Canada, where the latter was at present engaged in
the comparatively mild occupation of bass-fishing. With their
business talk the acquaintance would have begun and finished, if
Mr. Pett had been able to please himself, for he had not taken a
fancy to Lord Wisbeach. But he was an American, with an
American's sense of hospitality, and, the young man being a
friend of Hammond Chester, he had felt bound to invite him to
Riverside Drive--with misgivings which were now, he felt,
completely justified.
"Ann ought to marry," said Mrs. Pett. "She gets her own way too
much now. However, it is entirely her own affair, and there is
nothing that we can do." She rose. "I only hope she will be
sensible."
She went out, leaving Mr. Pett gloomier than she had found him.
He hated the idea of Ann marrying Lord Wisbeach, who, even if he
had had no faults at all, would be objectionable in that he would
probably take her to live three thousand miles away in his own
country.
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