"Don't be a fool, Montagu," said Miss Forrester.
"Well, it is. If we decide upon Ventnor, she must have frocks and things to come out with."
"I suppose so," said Mr Whittlestaff.
"But she'll want nothing of the kind at Black Gang."
"Do hold your tongue, and not make an ass of yourself. What do you know what dresses I shall want? As it is, I don't think I shall go either to the one place or the other. The Smiths are at Ryde, and the girls are my great friends. I think we'll go to Ryde, after all."
"I'm so sorry, Mr Whittlestaff, that we can't expect the pleasure of seeing you at our wedding. It is, of course, imperative that Kattie should be married in the cathedral. Her father is one of the dignitaries, and could not bear not to put his best foot foremost on such an occasion. The Dean will be there, of course. I'm afraid the Bishop cannot come up from Farnham, because he will have friends with him. I am afraid John Gordon will have gone by that time, or else we certainly would have had him down. I should like John Gordon to be present, because he would see how the kind of thing is done." The name of John Gordon at once silenced all the matrimonial chit-chat which was going on among them. It was manifest both to Mr Whittlestaff and to Mary that it had been lugged in without a cause, to enable Mr Blake to talk about the absent man. "It would have been pleasant; eh, Kattie?"
"We should have been very glad to see Mr Gordon, if it would have suited him to come," said Miss Forrester.
"It would have been just the thing for him; and we at Oxford together, and everything. Don't you think he would have liked to be there? It would have put him in mind of other things, you know."
To this appeal there was no answer made. It was impossible that Mary should bring herself to talk about John Gordon in mixed company. And the allusion to him stirred Mr Whittlestaff's wrath. Of course it was understood as having been spoken in Mary's favour. And Mr Whittlestaff had been made to perceive by what had passed at Little Alresford that the Little Alresford people all took the side of John Gordon, and were supposed to be taking the side of Mary at the same time. There was not one of them, he said to himself, that had half the sense of Mrs Baggett. And there was a vulgarity about their interference of which Mrs Baggett was not guilty.
"He is half way on his road to the diamond-fields," said Evelina.