“Really I am becoming uneasy,” she said, resolved that Clemence at least should be so. “Mr. Effingham is always so punctual; I trust that nothing serious is the matter!”
“How ill papa has been looking lately,” observed Arabella.
Vincent found that his partner was paying very little attention to her game.
“This is the third time that you have been huffed!” he exclaimed; “if you do not take care I shall carry off every one of your men!”
“Mr. Effingham is very much changed; I am distressed to perceive it,” pursued Lady Selina. “Six months ago he was the youngest man of his age that ever I saw,—you might have really taken him for thirty,—and now!”
“I was noticing yesterday a streak of grey in his hair,” observed Arabella, glancing maliciously towards Mrs. Effingham.
“Won’t you move?” cried Vincent rather impatiently to his abstracted partner. Clemence mechanically placed her piece.
“I dare say that papa is worried by business,” said Lousia, resuming the thread of the conversation.
“There’s a carriage at last!” exclaimed Vincent; but the quick, listening ear of Clemence had caught the sound before he could hear it, and hastily rising, she quitted the room.
“The game’s up!” cried Vincent, making a clean sweep of the board, and tossing black and white promiscuously into the box; “it’s a shame, for I had much the best of it.”