‘I could, certainly,’ says Crosby, coming to the rescue. ‘In my opinion, anyone that looked at you would know at once that you were forty.’
At this they laugh, and Susan casts her so very unusual ire behind her.
‘You will bring up the boys to-morrow, then?’ says Lady Forster, who is always chattering. ‘And we’ll go for a long drive, and have a gipsy tea. That will be better than nothing. And as we go Susan shall show us the bits. No use in depending on George for that. He knows nothing of the scenery round here, or any other scenery for the matter of that, except African interiors, kraals, and nasty naked nigger women, and that. So immodest of him! He’ll come to grief some day. We can go somewhere for a gipsy tea to-morrow, can’t we, George? I’m dying to light a fire.’
‘What, another!’ says Lord Jack, regarding her with a would-be woe-begone air. He lays his hand lightly on his heart.
‘It’s going to rain, I think,’ says Sir William presently; he is standing in one of the windows.
‘“Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!”’ exclaims Miss Forbes. ‘What a thing to say!’
‘It always rains in Ireland, doesn’t it?’ asks Lady Muriel, in her soft, low voice.
‘Oh no—no indeed!’ cries Susan eagerly. ‘Does it, Mr. Crosby?’
‘Certainly not. Lady Muriel must prolong her stay here’—smiling at the beautiful girl leaning in a picturesque attitude against the window-shutter—‘and take back with her a more kindly view of our climate.’
Yes; it is quite settled, thinks Susan. He loves her, and she—of course she loves him. And he wants her to prolong her stay, most naturally. And most naturally, too, he would like her to take back to England a kindly impression of her future home, of her future climate. Oh, how pretty, how lovely she is!