The Squire scowled at him, and went out of the room without a word.
"Nice manners!" commented Bobby Trench to himself.
"The fact is," said Humphrey, "that the governor won't know the lady."
"Why not? What's the matter with her?" asked his friend. "I should have thought she'd have been a godsend in a place like this. I thought you said your brother got her down here."
"So he did," said Humphrey, making a clean breast of it. "That's what the row's about. Governor wouldn't have anything to do with her, and so Dick has retired from the scene for a time. But don't say anything about it, old chap. Little family disturbance we don't want to go any further."
"Course not," said Bobby Trench, delighted to get hold of the end of a piece of gossip and determined to draw out the rest as soon as possible. "So that's how the land lies, is it? Now I see why she didn't want to have any more truck with this engaging youth. Well, your brother's taste is to be commended. Why does your father object to her?"
"Oh, I don't know. Old-fashioned prejudice, I suppose; and he knew George Dubec."
"And he was a daisy, from all accounts. Come on, we'd better be getting back."
Old Lord Meadshire, who had been Lord-Lieutenant of the county from which his title came for over forty years, and took an almost fatherly interest in its inhabitants, learnt from Mrs. Graham who the unknown lady was.
"Oh, I can tell you all about her," she said. "She's making a fine disturbance in this little duck-pond."