‘With great good-temper, or good-breeding. I don’t know exactly which covered the indifference she displayed, till Miss Betty, when taking her leave, renewed the impertinence in the hall, by saying something about the triumphant success such a costume would achieve in the circus, when Nina curtsied, and said: “I am charmed to hear you say so, madam, and shall wear it for my benefit; and if I could only secure the appearance of yourself and your little groom, my triumph would be, indeed, complete.” I did not dare to wait for more, but hurried out to affect to busy myself with the saddle, and pretend that it was not tightly girthed.’
‘I’d have given twenty pounds, if I had it, to have seen the old woman’s face. No one ever ventured before to pay her back with her own money.’
‘But I give you such a wrong version of it, Dick. I only convey the coarseness of the rejoinder, and I can give you no idea of the ineffable grace and delicacy which made her words sound like a humble apology. Her eyelids drooped as she curtsied, and when she looked up again, in a way that seemed humility itself, to have reproved her would have appeared downright cruelty.’
‘She is a finished coquette,’ said he bitterly; ‘a finished coquette.’
Kate made no answer, though he evidently expected one; and after waiting a while, he went on: ‘Not but her high accomplishments are clean thrown away in such a place as this, and amongst such people. What chance of fitting exercise have they with my father or myself? Or is it on Joe Atlee she would try the range of her artillery?’
‘Not so very impossible this, after all,’ muttered Kate quietly.
‘What, and is it to that her high ambitions tend? Is he the prize she would strive to win?’
‘I can be no guide to you in this matter, Dick. She makes no confidences with me, and of myself I see nothing.’
‘You have, however, some influence over her.’
‘No; not much.’