"How can you talk such nonsense, Mabel?" said Miss Cassewary.
"But it is so. I feel that people must be sick of seeing me. I know I am very often sick of seeing them. Here is something fresh,—and not only unlike, but so much more lovely. I quite acknowledge that I may be jealous, but no one can say that I am spiteful. I wish that some republican Adonis or Apollo would crop up,—so that we might have our turn. But I don't think the republican gentlemen are equal to the republican ladies. Do you, Lord Silverbridge?"
"I haven't thought about it."
"Mr. Sprottle for instance."
"I have not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Sprottle."
"Now we've been round the haycocks, and really, Lord Silverbridge, I don't think we have gained much by it. Those forced marches never do any good." And so they parted.
He was thinking with a bitter spirit of the ill-result of his morning's work when he again found himself close to Miss Boncassen in the crowd of departing people on the terrace. "Mind you keep your word," she said. And then she turned to her father. "Lord Silverbridge has promised to call."
"Mrs. Boncassen will be delighted to make his acquaintance."
He got into his cab and was driven off towards Richmond. As he went he began to think of the two young women with whom he had passed his morning. Mabel had certainly behaved badly to him. Even if she suspected nothing of his object, did she not owe it to their friendship to be more courteous to him than she had been? And if she suspected that object, should she not at any rate have given him the opportunity?
Or could it be that she was really jealous of the American girl? No;—that idea he rejected instantly. It was not compatible with the innate modesty of his disposition. But no doubt the American girl was very lovely. Merely as a thing to be looked at she was superior to Mabel. He did feel that as to mere personal beauty she was in truth superior to anything he had ever seen before. And she was clever too;—and good-humoured;—whereas Mabel had been both ill-natured and unpleasant.