"Quite too utterly consummately, preciously intense?" mutters Terence, sotto voce, regarding Kit sideways, who returns his rapturous glance with one full of ineffable disdain.
"I hope Michael won't object," says Miss Penelope, nervously. Michael is the gardener, and they are all, without exception, afraid of him.
"Nonsense, my dear! why should he?" says Miss Priscilla. "It isn't because he has been here for years that he is to forbid us the use of our own grounds, and of late I consider there is great fault to be found with him. Long service should not generate neglect, and of late there has not been a good lettuce or a respectable dish of asparagus in the garden."
"There wasn't even any thyme last week," says Kit, who maintains an undying feud with Michael. "He had to get some fresh plants from Cahirmore."
"Time was made for slaves," says Terence, meditatively. "You aren't a slave, are you?"
"I should hope not," says Kit, icily.
"Then you can't want time: so don't worry that poor old man in the garden about it. He hasn't a scythe, or a bald head, or a dismal forelock: so he can't know anything about it."
"You are so clever," says the younger Miss Beresford, with unmixed scorn, "that I wonder something dreadful doesn't happen to you."
"So do I," says Terence.
"Well, auntie, and whom shall we ask to meet these men of war?" says Kit, ignoring him,—publicly, to his great delight.