“Father is very interested about you. He asked what sort of boarding-house you were going to, and I said of course Miss Raymond was frightfully particular, and it was a friend of her own. He said he was glad to hear it, and from what he remembered, you were too good-looking to be let stay just anywhere! I suppose he meant men!
“Remember you promised faithfully to tell me if anyone fell in love with you. I’m sure they will! No one has with me, but I hardly ever see anyone. This is the way my days are spent, mostly——”
The rest of Nathalie’s letter was not so interesting, and Lydia put it away without reading further.
Her mind dwelt upon the first part of the letter, and she smiled to herself.
Even though Mr. Palmer had not seen her since she was fifteen years old, it was pleasant to know that he had thought her good-looking, and Lydia was almost certain that her appearance had improved very much since then, especially now that her dark hair was knotted up at the back of her head, with a high, Spanish-looking comb thrust into one side of the thick, outstanding twist.
“I suppose he meant men!”
That phrase in Nathalie’s letter kept coming to her mind, and she smiled to herself a little.
It was quite time, Lydia considered, that she should learn something about men.
Grandpapa was old and didn’t count—apart from the fact that, as Lydia shrewdly surmised, he was quite unlike any other man, and could never be looked upon as the representative of a type. Uncle George and Uncle Robert didn’t count, either—uncles never did. Bob Senthoven Lydia dismissed with a shrug. She had not seen him since her visit to Wimbledon nearly three years ago, when he had made no favourable impression upon the young candidate for examination honours.
The only other male acquaintance to which Lydia felt that she could fairly lay claim was Mr. Monteagle Almond. She remembered her conversation with him on the subject of her departure from Regency Terrace, and the ease with which she had contrived to shift his point of view until it agreed with her own.