‘Oh, Mr. Geoffrey will be frightfully snubbed. It is only right to prepare him beforehand.’
Mrs. Thorne raised her eyes—very fine and sparkling eyes they looked just then—to Geoffrey Arbuthnot’s face.
‘I shall like the sensation,’ remarked Geff. ‘To the usual forms of feminine caprice one should be indifferent. Snubbing means sincerity.’
‘If you tell her she has worked out a proposition in Euclid right she will resent it, think you are offering her an affront under the veil of compliment.’
‘Then I will speak of the propositions only in which she fails.’
‘If you admire the flower she holds in her hand she will throw it away. If you say the sky is fair, she will remark that, for her part, she thinks it looks like rain. Once or twice,’ said Linda, ‘I have met Marjorie Bartrand at some village treat or flower-show. The girl is not out, or likely to come out. She possesses one dress, I believe, the orthodox length of other people’s! And each time I have pitied the unfortunate young men who tried to make themselves agreeable to her.’
‘I am not an agreeable young man, Mrs. Thorne, either in fact or intention. Your warnings are kind, but I think even a Bartrand and an heiress will find it waste of time to snub me long.’
As Geoffrey spoke a side gate of the hotel garden opened. The figure of a spare, wooden-structured old gentleman dressed in white nankeen, and with a white umbrella, outspread, walked in.
‘Why, there is Robbie! My dear good husband!’ exclaimed Mrs. Thorne, impulsively. ‘What in the world——’
‘Allait-il faire dans cette galère?’