"There is no idea," interrupted Mayne. "Miss Travers and I are very good friends. She is one of the straightest and the best. So natural and simple."
"How nice for you!"
"I only wish she was my sister," persisted her champion.
"By Jove,—do you?" drawled Calvert. "Well, I don't!" and he expelled a cloud of smoke from his thin, well-cut nostrils. "I'm, as you see,—smoking like the Indians,—to appease hunger. Presently I shall take a reef in my belt. I say," after a pause, "look at old Ffinch riding along the hillside. He breakfasted hours ago! I can't imagine why he does not chuck all this? Everyone knows he is quite too grossly prosperous—and she, with her talents, and her energy, is thrown away out here."
"Yes," agreed Mayne, "she's awfully clever, and go-ahead."
"A lot of what Americans call, 'Get up and go!' about her," said Calvert. "Wonderful driving force,—and what a woman to talk! She'd make a fine figure of a Sunday in Hyde Park; or taking a hand in some big revolution. Yes"—slowly closing his eyes—"I can see her in the tumbril," he concluded, with morose vindictiveness.
"I say, what amazing pictures you have in your mind's eye," said Mayne—who was not imaginative, "a cinematograph isn't in it!"
"Oh, here she comes at last!" said Calvert, tossing away his cheroot, and rising, he added with his most courtly air, "Welcome, welcome, dear lady—as the sun upon a darkened world."
Immediately after breakfast, Mayne ordered the cob, and rode away in spite of Mrs. Ffinch's urgent appeals for him to remain, and "spend a nice long day." He felt that at present, he could not endure any more of Calvert's society. What a poisonous tongue,—what a shameless climber; and there was such calculation and method in his schemes. He, by his own confession, made a point of cultivating the right people—chiefly through their womenkind—and cherished well-founded hopes of a comfortable, and prominent post on someone's staff.
He insinuated that he (Mayne) was sponging on the Travers', he read the accusation in the fellow's eyes—(Calvert himself was just the sort to cheat at croquet, and sponge on old ladies).—With regard to his host, he felt blameless. Travers treated him as the son of his old school-fellow; he and Nancy made him one of themselves, and allowed him to share in their interests, jokes, and even secrets. He knew all about the new habit, that was on its way from England for Nancy's birthday. Here his reflections were put an end to by the sight to Fairplains plantation, the motley pack, and Nancy herself.