The Squire may have forgotten, when he gave his consent to Virginia being asked to Kencote on this particular date, that on the following day the hounds would meet at Kencote, and there was to be a hunt breakfast. He had his due share of stupidity, but he was clever enough to see, when he did realise what had happened, that Virginia's presence at Kencote on so public an occasion would spread abroad the fact of his surrender as nothing else could do so pointedly.
He did not half like it. He was not quite sure in his mind exactly what he had surrendered by consenting to receive her, but he was quite sure that he had never meant to give up his right to make her first visit her last if he did not approve of her, and when the mild January day dawned and he went into his dressing-room it was with a mind considerably perplexed, for he did not know whether he approved of her or not, and yet here were all these people coming, who would see her there, and possibly—the more officious of them—actually go so far as to congratulate him on the approaching marriage in his family.
He had gone as far as that. He recognised that, whatever he thought about the matter himself, the rest of the world, as represented by the people amongst whom he lived, would, undoubtedly, hold that there was cause for congratulation. He even went a little further, without admitting it to himself: he accepted the general verdict of his neighbours, that Virginia was a very beautiful and a very taking person. Only he had not taken to her himself. She had tried him hard, during the previous evening, and several times, especially after his first glass of port, he had nearly allowed himself to fall a victim to her charm. But he had just managed to hold out, and in the cold light of morning, and removed from her presence, thinking also of the company that was presently to assemble, he frowned when he thought of her, and said aloud as he brushed his hair, which he always did the first thing in the morning, even before he looked at the weather-glass, "Confound the woman! Infernal nuisance! I wish the day was well over."
Presently, however, his thoughts grew rather lighter. It was a perfect day for his favourite sport, and he was going to hunt once more. He felt as eager as a schoolboy for it. Having received Virginia in his house, there was no object in seeking to avoid her in the field, and the relief to his mind in having nothing before him actually to spoil his pleasure in a day with the hounds was so great that it reacted on his view of Virginia, and he said, also aloud, as he folded his stock, "I wonder if she'll do after all."
But no; that was too much. Of course she wouldn't do. She was an American—well, perhaps that could be forgiven her: she was not glaringly transatlantic. She had been a stage-dancer. You had to remind yourself of the fact, but there was no doubt that it was a fact. Ugh! She was the widow of a rascal, living on the money he had left her, which had been got, probably, by the shadiest of courses, if not dishonestly. That was positively damning, and he could not understand how Dick could complaisantly accept such a situation and prepare to live partly upon it. But perhaps she had very little money and was deeply in debt, and there would be difficulty about that later on. He had not thought of that before, and slid away from the thought now, as quickly as possible. He did not want to spoil his day's pleasure. But a gloomy tinge was imparted to his thoughts, and again he frowned at the idea of what lay before him when the neighbours for miles round would be collected and he would have his difficult part to play before them.
Virginia came down to breakfast in her riding habit, which is a becoming costume to no woman unless she is on a horse. The Squire had an old-fashioned grudge against hunting-women in general, and he was not cordial to Virginia, although he made every effort to act conformably to his duties as her host. Whatever inroads she might have made on his prejudice against her on the previous evening when, in a dress of black chiffon with touches of heliotrope about her neck and in her lustrous hair, she had looked lovely and surprisingly young, she held small charm for him now, and it was with difficulty that he brought himself to be polite to her, as she sat at his right hand during breakfast.
Fortunately some distraction was afforded to him by the presence of Miss Phipp, to whom he had just been introduced for the first time. He found her astonishingly plain, and he was the sort of man who finds food for humour in the contemplation of a plain woman. But in his present mild state of discomfort he found no food for humour in Miss Phipp's obvious disregard of her proper position in the house. Miss Bird had never spoken at the breakfast table unless spoken to. She would have considered it immodest to do so. Miss Phipp bore a leading part in the conversation, and as she had only one subject—the education of the young, in which the Squire possessed no overmastering interest—by the end of the meal he was seriously considering the necessity of giving her a snub.
Miss Phipp's thesis, which she developed with considerable force, and a wealth of illustration drawn from her previous experience, was that a woman's brains were every bit as good as a man's, and that she could do just as much in the way of scholarship if her training began early and was carried on on the right lines.
"What do you think about it?" Miss Dexter asked of Nancy, who was sitting next to her.
"I think," replied Nancy, with a side glance at Miss Phipp, "that it depends a great deal on the teacher," at which Miss Dexter laughed, thus giving the answer a personal application.