"Pynsent? No. At least, I don't mean the pianiste: I mean the young lady who played the violin last night."
"Yes, Nan Pynsent, Sir John's half-sister. The heiress—and some people say the beauty of the county. Why do you look so stupefied, Mr. Campion?"
"I did not know her, that was all. I thought—who, then, is the lady who played the piano?"
"Mary Pynsent, a cousin. You surely did not think that she was the heiress?"
"Why did not Sir John's sister come down to dinner?" said Sydney, waxing angry.
"She has a craze about the children. Their governess is away, and she insists on looking after them. She is rather quixotic, you know; full of grand schemes for the future, and what she will do when she comes of age. Her property is all in Vanebury, by the bye: you must let her talk to you about the miners if you want to win her favor. She will be of age in a few months."
"I shall not try to win her favor."
"Dear me, how black you look, Mr. Campion. Are you vexed that you have not made her acquaintance?"
"Not at all," said Sydney, clearing his brow. "How could I have looked at her when you were there?"
The banal compliment pleased Mrs. Murray, and she began to talk of trivial matters in her usual trivial strain. Sydney scarcely listened: for once he was disconcerted, and angry with himself. He knew that he would have talked in a very different strain if he had imagined for one moment that Jack's companion was Miss Pynsent. He had not, perhaps, definitely said anything that he could regret; but he was sorry for the whole tone of his conversation. Would Miss Pynsent repeat his observations, he wondered, to her sister-in-law? Sydney did not often put himself in a false position, but he felt that his tact had failed him now. He returned to the house in an unusually disturbed state of mind; and a sentence which he overheard in the afternoon did not add to his tranquillity.