"So I do—sometimes. He's rather amusing, though."
"Of course, if you're prepared to make the sacrifice involved——"
"Oh, what nonsense!"
"Then you've no business to amuse yourself with him."
"Dear, dear! how moral you are!" said Trix.
The next development in the situation was this: My cousin Dora received a letter from the Marquis of Newhaven, with whom she was acquainted, praying her to allow him to run down to Poltons for a few days; he reminded her that she had once given him a general invitation; if it would not be inconvenient—and so forth. The meaning of this communication did not, of course, escape my cousin, who had witnessed the writer's attentions to Trix in the preceding season, nor did it escape the rest of us (who had talked over the said attentions at the club) when she told us about it, and announced that Lord Newhaven would arrive in the middle of the next day. Trix affected dense unconsciousness; her mother allowed herself a mysterious smile—which, however, speedily vanished when the curate (he was taking lunch with us) observed in a cheerful tone:
"Newhaven! Oh, I remember the chap at the House—plowed twice in Smalls—stumpy fellow, isn't he? Not a bad chap, though, you know, barring his looks. I'm glad he's coming."
"You won't be soon, young man," Lady Queenborough's angry eye seemed to say.
"I remember him," pursued Jack; "awfully smitten with a tobacconist's daughter in the Corn—oh, it's all RIGHT, Lady Queenborough—she wouldn't look at him."
This quasi apology was called forth by the fact of Lady Queenborough pushing back her chair and making for the door. It did not at all appease her to hear of the scorn of the tobacconist's daughter. She glanced sternly at Jack and disappeared. He turned to Trix and reminded her—without diffidence and coram populo, as his habit was—that she had promised him a stroll in the west wood.