"Boisterous, George? Was I boisterous?"
"I think your father was a little."
She felt herself blush beneath her veil as she answered. "Of course if you tell me anything about myself, I will endeavour to do as you tell me; but, as for papa, I am sure he knows how to behave himself. I don't think he ought to be found fault with because he likes to amuse himself."
"And that Captain De Baron was very loud," said Lord George, conscious that though his ground might be weak in reference to the Dean, he could say what he pleased about Jack De Baron.
"Young men do laugh and talk, don't they, George?"
"What they do in their barracks, or when they are together, is nothing to you or me. What such a one may do when he is in company with my wife is very much to me, and ought to be very much to you."
"George," she said, again pausing for a moment, "do you mean to tell me that I have misbehaved myself? Because, if so, speak it out at once."
"My dear, that is a foolish question for you to ask. I have said nothing about misbehaviour, and you ought, at any rate, to wait till I have done so. I should be very sorry to use such a word, and do not think that I shall ever have occasion. But surely you will admit that
there may be practises, and manners, and customs on which I am at liberty to speak to you. I am older than you."
"Husbands, of course, are older than their wives, but wives generally know what they are about quite as well as their husbands."