"Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty."
"See, there they are again," he says now, alluding to Georgie and her ducal companion, as they emerge from behind some thick shrubs. Another man is with them, too,—a tall, gaunt young man, with long hair, and a cadaverous face, who is staring at Georgie as though he would willingly devour her—but only in the interest of art. He is lecturing on the "Consummate Daffodil," and is comparing it unfavorably with the "Unutterable Tulip," and is plainly boring the two, with whom he is walking, to extinction. He is Sir John Lincoln, that old-new friend of Georgie's, and will not be shaken off.
"Long ago," says Georgie, tearfully, to herself, "he was not an æsthete. Oh, how I wish he would go back to his pristine freshness!"
But he won't: he maunders on unceasingly about impossible flowers, that are all very well in their way, but whose exaltedness lives only in his own imagination, until the duke, growing weary (as well he might, poor soul), turns aside, and greets with unexpected cordiality a group upon his right, that, under any other less oppressive circumstances, would be abhorrent to him. But to spend a long hour talking about one lily is not to be borne.
Georgie follows his example, and tries to escape Lincoln and the tulips by diving among the aforesaid group. She is very successful,—groups do not suit æsthetics,—and soon the gaunt young man takes himself, and his long hair, to some remote region.
"How d'ye do, Mrs. Branscombe?" says a voice at her elbow, a moment later, and, turning, she finds herself face to face with Mr. Kennedy.
"Ah! you?" she says, with very flattering haste, being unmistakably pleased to see him. "I had no idea you were staying in the country."
"I am staying with the Luttrells'. Molly asked me down last month."
"She is a great friend of yours, I know," says Mrs. Branscombe; "yet I hadn't the faintest notion I should meet you here to-day."
"And you didn't care either, I dare say," says Mr. Kennedy, in a tone that is positively sepulchral, and, considering all things, very well done indeed.