"Oh," cried Parker, in an agony, "all this interrogation is horribly irregular."
"Never mind him," said Peter. "Do you really think you're doing the right thing, Mary?"
The girl looked helplessly at her brother for a minute or two. Peter cocked up a whimsical, appealing eye from under his bandages. The defiance melted out of her face.
"I'll tell the truth," said Lady Mary.
"Good egg," said Peter, extending a hand. "I'm sorry. I know you like the fellow, and we appreciate your decision enormously. Truly, we do. Now, sail ahead, old thing, and you take it down, Parker."
"Well, it really all started years ago with George. You were at the Front then, Peter, but I suppose they told you about it—and put everything in the worst possible light."
"I wouldn't say that, dear," put in the Duchess. "I think I told Peter that your brother and I were not altogether pleased with what he had seen of the young man—which was not very much, if you remember. He invited himself down one weekend when the house was very full, and he seemed to make a point of consulting nobody's convenience but his own. And you know, dear, you even said yourself you thought he was unnecessarily rude to poor old Lord Mountweazle."
"He said what he thought," said Mary. "Of course, Lord Mountweazle, poor dear, doesn't understand that the present generation is accustomed to discuss things with its elders, not just kow-tow to them. When George gave his opinion, he thought he was just contradicting."
"To be sure," said the Dowager, "when you flatly deny everything a person says it does sound like contradiction to the uninitiated. But all I remember saying to Peter was that Mr. Goyles's manners seemed to me to lack polish, and that he showed a lack of independence in his opinions."
"A lack of independence?" said Mary, wide-eyed.