When he said good-night to her he told her that he would probably come and see her soon. She went away in a flutter, for his words, though casual, had had a sharply significant sound; besides, he had very nearly kissed her; if she had been more truthful, she would have said quite.
She didn’t, in thinking it over, know at all how this had happened, and she generally knew precisely how these things happened.
Lady Staines told her son at breakfast a few mornings later what she thought of Miss Fanshawe.
“She’s a girl,” she observed, knocking the top off her egg, “who will develop into a nervous invalid or an advanced coquette, and it entirely depends upon how much admiration she gets which she does. I hear she’s religious, too, in a silly, egotistical way. She ought to have her neck wrung.”
Sir Peter disagreed; they heard him in the servants’ hall.
“Certainly not!” he roared; “certainly not! I don’t think so at all! The girl’s a damned pretty piece, and the man’s one of my best tenants. He’s only just come, and he’s done wonders to the place already. And I won’t have the boy crabbed for fancying a neighbor! It’s very natural he should. You never have a woman in the house fit to look at. Who the devil do you expect your boys to marry? Negresses or bar-maids?”
“Gentlewomen,” said Lady Staines, firmly, “unless their father’s behavior prevents them from being accepted.”
Winn said nothing. He got up and began cutting ham at the sideboard. His mother hesitated a moment; but as she had only roused one of her men, she made a further effort in the direction of the other.
“The girl’s a mean-spirited little liar,” she observed. “I wouldn’t take her as a housemaid.”
“You may have to take her as a daughter-in-law, though,” Winn remarked without turning round from the sideboard.