116 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.
Dolly Norcott lives with her parents at Norwood, but spends most of her time at Westbury Lodge, St. John's Wood Road. They call it Westbury Lodge because Walter Milbanke has an estate at Westbury, near Bristol, and there is a little territorial vanity in this association of name. It is a picturesque, two-storey house, fenced in, and looking the daintier for the fencing when the front gate is open and you get a glimpse of a long grass-covered path, at the end of which there is a tesselated hall, and beyond a back garden, with tennis nets and flowers.
Westbury Lodge is by no means palatial, but it is sufficient for the wants of the Milbankes, Walter often declaring that if he were worth twenty thousand a year he would not want a larger house, nor would he desire to live one jot more ostentatiously than at present; though his wife ventures to remark that she hopes if ever he has twenty thousand a year he will go into Parliament, and work his way into the Cabinet as So-and-So has done, and as So-and-so means to do.
Walter meets his wife and sister in the hall, kisses them both, asks where they have been, what the news is, and tells them he has only just come from the office; hopes dinner will not be late he has asked Sam Swynford to join them. Jenny says she thinks that unfortunate, and asks if he has forgotten that Philip Forsyth is coming, and that the occasion is the talking over the Venice trip. No. Walter says he has not forgotten; and the fact is, he says, he does not choose to have this fast and loose business of Mr. Philip Forsyth, and he is not sure that Sam Swynford would not be a much better match. Anyhow he regards it as a good idea to bring the two young fellows together as much as possible, that Dolly may make up her mind, or that the two young fellows may kill each other or do something. For his part he does not intend this affair to go on; if Philip accompanies them to Italy, why, of course, that may be said to settle the question.
