‘You know I never wished to press any choice on you,’ she faltered.
‘What!’ with a good-humoured air of affront, ‘you thought me serious? Don’t you know I’m the ninth, instead of the nineteenth-century man, under your wing? I’d promise you to be a bishop, only, you see, I’m afraid I couldn’t be mediocre enough.’
‘For shame, Owen!’ and yet she smiled. That boy’s presence and caressing sweetness towards herself were the greatest bliss to her, almost beyond that of a mother with a son, because more uncertain, less her right by nature.
Phœbe came down as the carriage was at the door, and they called in Whittington Street for her brother, but he only came out to say he was very busy, and would not intrude on Mrs. Charteris—bashfulness for which he was well abused on the way to Lowndes Square.
Owen, with his air of being at home, put aside the servants as they entered the magnificent house, replete with a display of state and luxury analogous to that of Beauchamp, but with better taste and greater ease. The Fulmorts were in bondage to ostentation; the Charterises were lavish for their own enjoyment, and heedless alike of cost and of appearance.
The great drawing-room was crowded with furniture, and the splendid marqueterie tables and crimson ottomans were piled with a wild confusion of books, prints, periodicals, papers, and
caricatures, heaped over ornaments and bijouterie, and beyond, at the doorway of a second room, even more miscellaneously filled, a small creature sprang to meet them, kissing Honora, and exclaiming, ‘Here you are! Have you brought the pig’s wool? Ah! but you’ve brought something else! No—what’s become of that Redbreast!’ as she embraced Phœbe.
‘He was so busy that he could not come.’
‘Ill-behaved bird; a whole month without coming near me.’
‘Only a week,’ said Phœbe, speaking less freely, as she perceived two strangers in the room, a gentleman in moustaches, who shook hands with Owen, and a lady, whom from her greeting to Miss Charlecote (for introductions were not the way of the house) she concluded to be the formidable Rashe, and therefore regarded with some curiosity.