"However, if she intended what you think, she rather defeated her object; as I shan't trouble her again in a hurry. Can't bear feeling myself in the way."
"Is she really pretty?" Cyril asks, curiously, though idly.
"Really; almost lovely."
"Evidently a handsome family," thinks Cyril. "I wonder if he saw my friend the sister, or step-sister, or companion."
"She looks sad, too," goes on Guy, "and as though she had a melancholy story attached to her."
"I do hope not, my dear," interrupts his mother, uneasily. "There is nothing so objectionable as a woman with a story. Later on one is sure to hear something wrong about her."
"I agree with you," Cyril says, promptly. "I can't bear mysterious people. When in their society, I invariably find myself putting a check on my conversation, and blushing whenever I get on the topic of forgeries, burglaries, murders, elopements, and so forth. I never can keep myself from studying their faces when such subjects are mentioned, to see which it was had ruffled the peace of their existence. It is absurd, I know, but I can't help it, and it makes me uncomfortable."
"Does this lady live in the wood, where I met you?" asks Lilian, addressing Guy, and apparently deeply interested.
"Yes, about a mile from that particular spot. She is a new tenant we took to oblige a friend, but we know nothing about her."