Blushing honours were raining thick on the enchanted lady. "One thing leads to another," she said to herself, and here was the brother of Lord Conybeare endorsing the happy meeting of this afternoon.
Then aloud:
"Very pleased to make your acquaintance," she said, for the phrase was ineradicable. She had searched in vain for a cisatlantic equivalent, but could not get hold of one. Like the snake in spring, she had cast off the slough of many of her transatlanticisms, but "very pleased" was deeply engrained, and appeared involuntarily and inevitably.
But Toby's inflammable eye had caught the filia pulchrior.
"My sister-in-law tells me you are dining with her to-morrow," he said genially. "That is delightful."
He paused a moment, and racked his brain for another suitable remark; but, finding none, he turned abruptly to Miss Murchison.
"May I have the pleasure?" he asked. "We shall just have time for a turn before this is over."
"Of course you may, Lord Evelyn," said her mother precipitately.
Miss Murchison paused for a moment without replying, and Toby, though naturally modest, told himself that her mother's ready acceptance for her justified the pause.
"Delighted," she said.