"And you had Mr. Quentin, of course, and the General, and Mr. Latimer, and Dr. Parks. What champagne did you give them; from the mess, or the bazaar?"
"Bazaar champagne! Oh, Mrs. Creery"—indignantly—"there is no such thing, is there?"
"Yes, and why not? I believe no one can tell the difference between it and that expensive stuff at the mess. I declare—" her attention suddenly distracted to another quarter—"look at Mr. Lisle, in a respectable suit of clothes"—glancing over to where that gentleman was talking to three men.
"Billy!" she screamed to one of Mrs. Home's little boys, "go over to Mr. Lisle, and tell him that I want him at once. Fancy"—turning to Helen and speaking in a tone of pious horror—"those men are European convicts, tickets-of-leave, and allowed to use the garden and library—a very unwise indulgence. I quite set my face against it, and so I've told the General. Of course no decent person would speak to the wretches; no one but a man like Lisle!"
"What have they been sent here for?" asked her companion.
"One for forgery, one for stabbing a man in a sailor's row in Calcutta, and one was, he says, sent here by mistake; but most of them say that! Well," raising her voice, "Mr. Lisle, permit me to congratulate you on your choice of companions."
"Poor creatures! They never have the chance of exchanging a word with any one but each other, it pleases them, and does me no harm. Lots of worse fellows are at large,—and prospering!"
"Oh, pray don't excuse yourself, Mr. Lisle. Birds of a feather—you know the adage."
"Yes, thank you, Mrs. Creery," making an inclination of such exaggerated deference, that Helen now understood what Miss Caggett meant, when she said that he was polite to rudeness. "You sent for me, Mrs. Creery?"—interrogatively.
"Yes, because I did not choose to see you talking to those jail birds! You can talk to me instead."