Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. "Nice girl, Miss Palliser," he said to Phineas, forgetting that he had expressed himself nearly in the same way to the same man on a former occasion.
"Very nice, indeed. It seems to me that you are sweet upon her yourself."
"Who? I! Oh, no—I don't think of those sort of things. I suppose I shall marry some day. I've a house fit for a lady to-morrow, from top to bottom, linen and all. And my property's my own."
"That's a comfort."
"I believe you. There isn't a mortgage on an acre of it, and that's what very few men can say. As for Miss Palliser, I don't know that a man could do better; only I don't think much of those things. If ever I do pop the question, I shall do it on the spur of the moment. There'll be no preparation with me, nor yet any beating about the bush. 'Would it suit your views, my dear, to be Mrs. Spooner?' that's about the long and the short of it. A clean-made little mare, isn't she?" This last observation did not refer to Adelaide Palliser, but to an animal standing in Lord Chiltern's stables. "He bought her from Charlie Dickers for a twenty pound note last April. The mare hadn't a leg to stand upon. Charlie had been stagging with her for the last two months, and knocked her all to pieces. She's a screw, of course, but there isn't anything carries Chiltern so well. There's nothing like a good screw. A man'll often go with two hundred and fifty guineas between his legs, supposed to be all there because the animal's sound, and yet he don't know his work. If you like schooling a young 'un, that's all very well. I used to be fond of it myself; but I've come to feel that being carried to hounds without much thinking about it is the cream of hunting, after all. I wonder what the ladies are at? Shall we go back and see?" Then they turned to the house, and Mr. Spooner began to be a little fidgety. "Do they sit altogether mostly all the morning?"
"I fancy they do."
"I suppose there's some way of dividing them. They tell me you know all about women. If you want to get one to yourself, how do you manage it?"
"In perpetuity, do you mean, Mr. Spooner?"
"Any way;—in the morning, you know."
"Just to say a few words to her?"