"Wrong. There was one other person—Sir Penthony Stafford!"
"Really!" says Cecil, coloring warmly, and sitting in a more upright position. "He has returned, then? I thought he was in Egypt."
"So he was, but he has come back, looking uncommon well, too—as brown as a berry. To my thinking, as good a fellow to look at as there is in England, and a capital fellow all round into the bargain!"
"Dear me!" says Cecil. "What a loss Egypt has sustained! And what a partisan you have become! May I ask," suppressing a pretended yawn behind her perfumed fan, "where your rara avis is at present hiding?"
"I asked him," says Mr. Potts, "but he rather evaded the question."
"And is that your Mr. Potts?" asks Molly, finding herself close to Tedcastle, speaking with heavy and suspicious emphasis.
"Yes," Tedcastle admits, coloring slightly as he remembers the glowing terms in which he has described his friend. "Don't you—eh, don't you like him?"
"Oh! like him? I cannot answer that yet; but," laughing, "I certainly don't admire him."
And indeed Mr. Potts's beauty is not of the sort to call forth raptures at first sight.