"Really, Taffy!" begins Lilian, angrily.
"Yes, he is: you take my word for it. I'm rather a judge in such matters. Bet you a fiver," says Mr. Musgrave, "he proposes to you before the year is out."
"I wonder, Taffy, how you can be so vulgar!" says Lilian, with crimson cheeks, and a fine show of superior breeding. "I never bet. I forbid you to speak to me on this subject again. Sir Guy, I assure you, has as much intention of proposing to me as I have of accepting him should he do so."
"More fool you," says Taffy, unabashed. "I'm sure he is much nicer than that melancholy Chesney. If I were a girl I should marry him straight off."
"Perhaps he would not marry you," replies Lilian, cuttingly.
"Wouldn't he? he would like a shot, if I were like Lilian Chesney," says Taffy, positively.
"'Like a shot'—what does that mean?" says Miss Chesney, with withering sarcasm. "It is a pity you cannot forget your schoolboy slang, and try to be a gentleman. I don't think you over hear that 'decent fellow' Sir Guy, or even that cut-throat Archibald, use it."
With this parting shaft she marches off overflowing with indignation, leaving Mr. Musgrave lost in wonder at her sudden change of manner.
"What on earth is up with her now?" he asks himself, desperately; but the dressing-bell ringing at this moment disarms thought, and sends him in-doors to prepare for dinner.
Mrs. Boileau has asked no one to meet them except a lank and dreary curate, who is evidently a prime favorite with her. He is an Honorable Mr. Boer, with nothing attractive about him except a most alarming voice that makes one glance instinctively at his boots under the mistaken impression that the sound must come from them. This is rather unfortunate for the curate, as his feet are not (or rather are) his strong point, Nature having endowed them with such a tremendous amount of heel, and so much sole, innocent of instep, as makes them unpleasantly suggestive of sledge-hammers.