"Not well, but well enough," says Mrs. Branscombe, with a frown. "I know him well enough to hate him."
She pauses, rather ashamed of herself for her impulsive confidence, and not at all aware that by this hasty speech she has made a friend of Sir James for life.
"Hate him?" he says, feeling he could willingly embrace her on the spot were society differently constituted. "Why, what has he done to you?"
"Nothing; but he is not good enough for Clarissa," protests she, energetically. "But then who is good enough? I really think," says Mrs. Branscombe, with earnest conviction, "she is far too sweet to be thrown away upon any man."
Even this awful speech fails to cool Sir James's admiration for the speaker. She has declared herself a non-admirer of the all-powerful Horace, and this goes so far a way with him that he cannot bring himself to find fault with her on any score.
"I don't know why I express my likes and dislikes to you so openly," she says, gravely, a little later on; "and I don't know, either, why I distrust Horace. I have only a woman's reason. It is Shakespeare slightly altered: 'I hate him so, because I hate him so.' And I hope, with all my heart, Clarissa will never marry him."
Then she blushes again at her openness, and gives him her hand, and bids him good-by, and presently he goes on his way once more to Gowran.
On the balcony there stands Clarissa, the solemn Bill close beside her. She is leaning on the parapet, with her pretty white hands crossed and hanging loosely over it. As she sees him coming, with a little touch of coquetry, common to most women, she draws her broad-brimmed hat from her head, and, letting it fall upon the balcony, lets the uncertain sunlight touch warmly her fair brown hair and tender exquisite face.
Bill, sniffing, lifts himself, and, seeing Sir James, shakes his shaggy sides, and, with his heavy head still drooping, and his most hang-dog expression carefully put on, goes cautiously down the stone steps to greet him.
Having been patted, and made much of, and having shown a scornful disregard for all such friendly attentions, he trots behind Sir James at the slow funeral pace he usually affects, until Clarissa is reached.