"Little Gaspar," said Lord Earle, laughing, "is six feet high now, mother. You forget how time flies; he is taller than Lionel, and a fine, handsome young fellow he is. He will be quite an acquisition."
Lord Earle was too much engrossed to remark the uneasiness his few words had caused. Lord Airlie winced at the idea of a rival a handsome man, and sentimental, too, as all those people educated in Germany are!
"I can not understand what possesses English people to send their sons abroad for education," he said to Beatrice—"and to Germany of all places in the world."
"Why should they not?" she asked.
"The people are so absurdly sentimental," he replied. "Whenever I see a man with long hair and dreamy eyes, I know he is a German."
"You are unjust," said Beatrice, as she left him to join Lillian.
"You are jealous," said Lionel, who had overheard the conversation. "Look out for a rival in the lists, my lord."
"I wish this tiresome ball were over," sighed Lord Airlie. "I shall have no chance of speaking while it is on the tapis."
But he soon forgot his chagrin. The formidable Gaspar appeared that very morning, and, although Lord Airlie could perceive that he was at once smitten with Beatrice's charms, he also saw that she paid no heed whatever to the new-comer; indeed, after a few words of courteous greeting, she returned to the point under discussion—what flowers would look best in the ball room.
"If we have flowers at all," she said, imperiously, "let them be a gorgeous mass of bloom—something worth looking at; not a few pale blossoms standing here and there like 'white sentinels'; let us have flowers full of life and fragrance. Lillian, you know what I mean; you remember Lady Manton's flowers—tier after tier of magnificent color."