“They have given us a sentry at the door, I perceive,” said Sir Horace, with assumed indifference.
“A very proper attention!” remarked the lady, in a tone that more than half implied the compliment was one intended for herself.
“Have you seen the Chevalier Stubber yet?” asked Upton.
“No; he has been twice here, but I was dressing, or writing notes. And you?”
“I told him to come about two o'clock,” sighed Sir Horace. “I rather like Stubber.”
This was said in a tone of such condescension that it sounded as though the utterer was confessing to an amicable weakness in his nature,—“I rather like Stubber.”
Though there was something meant to invite agreement in the tone, the Princess only accepted the speech with a slight motion of her eyebrows, and a look of half unwilling assent.
“I know he's not of your world, dear Princess, but he belongs to that Anglo-Saxon stock we are so prone to associate with all the ideas of rugged, unadorned virtue.”
“Rugged and unadorned indeed!” echoed the lady.
“And yet never vulgar,” rejoined Upton,—“never affecting to be other than he is; and, stranger still, not self-opinionated and conceited.”