Lady Chetwoode is writing at a distant table; Miss Chesney, on a sofa close to the fire, is surreptitiously ruining—or, as she fondly but erroneously believes, is knitting away bravely at—the gray sock her ladyship has just laid down. Lilian's pretty lips are pursed up, her brow is puckered, her soft color has risen as she bends in strong hope over her work. The certain charm that belongs to this scene fails to impress Sir Guy, who is too full of agitated determination to leave room for minor interests.
"Lilian," he says, bluntly, with all the execrable want of tact that characterizes the very gentlest of men, "I wish you would not cultivate an acquaintance with Mrs. Arlington."
"Eh?" says Lilian, looking up in somewhat dazed amazement from her knitting, which is gradually getting into a more and more hopeless mess, "what is it, then, Sir Guy?"
"I wish you would not seek an intimacy with Mrs. Arlington," repeats Chetwoode, speaking all the more sternly in that he feels his courage ebbing.
The sternness, however, proves a mistake; Miss Chesney resents it, and, scenting battle afar off, encases herself in steel, and calmly, nay, eagerly, awaits the onslaught.
"What has put you out?" she says, speaking in a tone eminently calculated to incense the listener. "You seem disturbed. Has Heskett been poaching again? or has that new pointer turned out a disappointer? What has poor Mrs. Arlington done to you, that you must send her to Coventry?"
"Nothing, only——"
"Nothing! Oh, Sir Guy, surely you must have some substantial reason for tabooing her so entirely."
"Perhaps I have. At all events, I ask you most particularly to give up visiting at The Cottage."
"I am very sorry, indeed, to seem disobliging, but I shall not give up a friend without sufficient reason for so doing."