"Not at all. Of course, it's a little different in this house. We have to keep up the farce, and we don't like to put people like the Perrys out. We generally choose a night for our parties when they are dining out. In other houses you can just tell them upstairs that there won't be any regular dinner for them, when you think of having guests of your own."
At that moment Edward came into the room, and Lord Arthur left us, saying that he must go and help Mr. Blother with the table.
Edward seemed a trifle disturbed. "I say," he said, "what is all this about your being a Highlander?"
"Well, Miss Miriam and I settled it between ourselves that England must be in the Highlands somewhere," I explained.
He looked at me with some suspicion. "It's all very well to have a joke," he said, "and the story you made up to me was certainly very ingenious and amusing, though highly absurd. But I don't think you ought to want to keep it up any longer. It amused Miriam, but there's always the danger, where a young girl lives in such surroundings as these, that she may get a taste for luxury. You ought not to make it out to her that people could live anywhere in the way you pretend without disgrace. It is apt to confound right and wrong."
"My dear fellow," I said, "I quite see your point. But Miss Miriam is so level-headed that I am sure she would never be affected in that way."
"Perhaps not," he said. "Still, I think it is time you dropped it. Of course, I shouldn't dream of asking you where you really do come from, if you don't want to tell me. It is quite obvious that you are well-born and well-educated, and that is enough for me."
"My dear Edward, if you will let me call you so, I appreciate your delicacy. All I have told you is true, but I have not the slightest wish to publish it abroad if you think it would be better that I shouldn't."
"I think it is much better that you shouldn't, unless you wish to lie under the suspicion of being touched in the head."