“Yes, papa. I’m so sorry,” and, with a hurried farewell to her companion, she proceeded to obey the implied injunction, her experience warning her that there were squalls ahead; while her late escort, disconsolately anathematising the lord of Cranston as a cantankerous old ruffian, betook himself once more to the assemblage of his fellows.
“Who was that boy with whom you spent the afternoon, Nellie?” asked General Dorrien, in the carriage on the way home.
“I didn’t know I had spent the afternoon with anyone, papa,” she replied, as gently as she could. “But if you mean who was I talking to when you came up, it was Mr Eustace Ingelow.”
“Was it? A most impertinent boy, I call him,” went on her father, with a very dark look. “Because he meets anyone in society, that seems a sufficient reason for monopolising them for the rest of the afternoon. An impudent, pushing, and most forward young cub, to come thrusting himself upon us, and you to encourage him! Who is he, I should like to know? We’ve never seen him before, and, if I can help it, we shall never see him again.”
Poor Nellie made no reply, beyond a weary little sigh. What had she done? Why, the duration of their harmless little walk had barely exceeded half an hour. And in her heart of hearts she owned to herself that the said half-hour had flown very quickly indeed.
“I say, dad,” cried Eustace Ingelow that evening at the dinner-table. “I like that man Dorrien. Rather reserved and—er—quiet at first—the sort of man who wants knowing, eh?”
“H’m, so that’s your opinion, is it?” said the rector, somewhat attentively. “Now I shouldn’t have thought he’d have been at all the sort of fellow you’d have taken to at first sight, Eustace.”
“Yes, he is,” replied the Oxonian decidedly. “He’s a man with a lot in him, I should think. Now that brother of his—the one that’s at Queen’s—he’s a—a—well, a scrubby sort, but I like this one. Roland, don’t they call him, eh?”
“It strikes me, from all accounts, that you like his sister a great deal more,” cried Sophie. “Why, Eusty, you disgraceful boy, you know you flirted outrageously with her all the afternoon.”
“Bosh! What next?” he protested, growing very red. “You girls think a fellow can’t speak to another girl without—er—without—. Besides you weren’t there, and you should never take hearsay evidence, Sophonisba, my jewel.”