"There's a lot of her, if you mean that. But she's too nosy," says Mr. Bellair, grumpily, a sense of injury full upon him. His own nose is of the charming curt and simple order: his "friends in council" (who might be more select) are wont to call it playfully a "spud." "Far too nosy! I hate a woman all nose! makes her look so like a mope."
"You've been getting a snubbing there," says his friend, this time unfeelingly and with an inhuman chuckle.
"I have," valiantly: "she has too much of the goddess about her for my fancy: choke-full of dignity and airs, you know, and all that sort of rubbish. It don't go down, I take it, in the long run. It's as much as she can do to say 'how d'ye do' to you, and she looks a fellow up and down half a dozen times before she gives him a waltz. You don't catch me inviting her to the 'mazy dance' again in a hurry. I hate affectation. I wouldn't marry that girl for untold gold."
"She wouldn't have you," says his friend, with a repetition of the unpleasant chuckle.
"Maybe she wouldn't," replies Mr. Bellair, rather hurt. "Anyhow, she is not to be named in the same day with Miss Chesney. I suppose you know she is engaged to Chetwoode, so you needn't get spoony on her," viciously; "it is quite an old affair, begun in the cradle, I believe, and kept up ever since: never can understand that sort of thing myself; would quite as soon marry my sister. But all men aren't alike."
"No, they aren't," says the friend, with conviction. "Why don't he marry her, though? He must be tired of looking at her."
"He funks it, that's what it is," says Mr. Bellair, "and no wonder; after seeing Miss Chesney he must feel rather discontented with his choice. Ah!"—with a sigh warranted to blow out the largest wax candle,—"there's a girl for you if you like!"
"Don't weep over it, old boy, at least here; you'll be seen," says his friend, jovially, with odious want of sympathy; after which they are pleased to remove themselves and their opinions to another part of the room.
When they have gone, Lilian, who has been turning white and red at intervals all through the discussion, remains motionless, her eyes still fixed on Chetwoode. She does not heed Archibald's remark, so earnestly is she regarding her guardian. Can it be true what they have just said, that he, Sir Guy, has been for years engaged to Florence? At certain moments such a thought has crossed her own mind, but never until to-night has she heard it spoken of.
Chetwoode, who has moved, comes a little nearer to where she is standing, and pauses there, compelled to it by a pressure in the crowd.