"What did you think of the American beauty?" asked Lady Cantrip when that was settled.
"I thought she was a beauty."
"So I perceived. You had eyes for nobody else," said Lady Cantrip, who had been at the garden-party.
"Somebody introduced her to me, and then I had to walk about the grounds with her. That's the kind of thing one always does in those places."
"Just so. That is what 'those places' are meant for, I suppose. But it was not apparently a great infliction." Lord Silverbridge had to explain that it was not an infliction;—that it was a privilege, seeing that Miss Boncassen was both clever and lovely; but that it did not mean anything in particular.
When he took his leave he asked his sister to go out into the grounds with him for a moment. This she did almost unwillingly, fearing that he was about to speak to her of Tregear. But he had no such purpose on his mind. "Of course you know," he began, "all that was nonsense you were saying about Mabel."
"I did not know."
"I was afraid you might blurt out something before her."
"I should not be so imprudent."
"Girls do make such fools of themselves sometimes. They are always thinking about people being in love. But it is the truth that my father said to me the other day how very much he liked what he had heard of her, and that he would like you to know her."