‘Eh?’ says Crosby quickly, and with a suspicion of a frown.
‘Very, very pretty,’ repeats Lennox fervently.
Crosby glances at Susan. This absurd joke, this jest on her name—with anyone else here it would be a jest only, but Susan—would she.... Her colour is faintly, very faintly accentuated, and she is looking straight at Lennox.
‘My name?’ says she, taking up the meaning he had not meant. ‘Do you really think it pretty? The boys and Betty despise it.’
Her gentle dignity goes home to all. Crosby is indignant with Lennox, and, indeed, so is Sir William. Sir William’s wife, however, I regret to say, is convulsed with laughter.
‘It is certainly not a name to be despised,’ says Lennox courteously, who is now a little ashamed of himself.
‘I like to be called by my Christian name,’ says a singularly young-looking married woman. ‘Puts people out so. They never know whether you are married or not for the first half-hour, at all events.’
They are now in a body strolling into the drawing-rooms, and Miss Forbes has gone back to her cross-examination of Susan.
‘Four brothers? So many? And all grown up?’
‘Oh no! Carew is the eldest, and he is only seventeen. But we have a cousin living with us, and he is twenty.’