"All right, when I get up. I forgot. Why don't you go with George Senhouse?"
"He's too serious, and this is a holiday. Besides, he doesn't hit them. I hate bloodshed, but I like to see something done. I wish dear old Dick were here. He'd bowl them over all right."
"I wonder," said Nancy, "when all that bother is going to stop. Dear papa will have to give way in the end, you know. He might just as well do it now and save time."
"If I were Dick I should just marry her and let him make the best of it. I wish he'd do something. Father has really been too tiresome for words for the last month. If you and I behaved like he does we should be sent to bed, and serve us right. I wonder what happened last night. I expect she was at the ball."
"He wouldn't take any notice of her if she was. I wish we could set eyes on her. I should like to see what she's really like."
"Cicely says she's very pretty."
"Well, I suppose she'd have to be that if Dick wants to marry her. Aren't men funny about women, Joan? Now I suppose you'd call that silly little Bobby Trench good-looking, but I should no more want to marry him than the ugliest man in the world."
"That isn't much of a discovery. You needn't have lived very long to find out that women are much more sensible than men."
With this aphorism Joan rose and proceeded to her toilette, and Nancy, after indulging in another short nap, followed her example.
The Squire, refreshed by his night's slumber, rose determined to do his duty by his guests and put from him for the day all thoughts of Lady George Dubec and, what was more difficult, of his son Dick. Mrs. Clinton, when she had returned from the ball, very late, had found him in a deep sleep in the great canopied bed which she had shared with him for so many years. He had not awakened during her long muffled process of undressing, nor when she slipped, careful to make no noise and as little movement as possible, into bed by his side. But before she slept he had turned over and, half asleep still, murmured, "Good-night, Nina. God bless you." It had been his nightly farewell of her for nearly forty years, uttered often with no special meaning, sometimes even without interval at the end of some unreasonable expression of annoyance. But last night the words had come softly and affectionately, as if, returning for a moment from the pleasant land of oblivion, where he had been wandering and to which he was immediately returning, he had been glad to find her waiting for him, his close companion, valued above others. She had put her hand softly on to his, and lain for a long time, in the deep silence of the night, in that light contact.