"Oh, she was all right," Letitia replied. "She had an irritating lot of callers there, though."
Her father nodded sympathetically.
"The extraordinary habit which people in our rank of life seem to have developed lately for making friends outside their own sphere is making Society very difficult," he declared. "Members of our own family are, I am afraid, amongst the transgressors. Whom did you meet this afternoon?"
Letitia mentioned a few names listlessly.
"And Mr. Thain," she concluded.
Her father betrayed his interest.
"Mr. Thain was there, eh? I understood that he was much averse to paying calls."
"He looked as though he had been roped in," Letitia observed, "and aunt was all over herself, apologising to him for having other people there. She wanted to consult him, it seems, about something or other, and she turned him over to me until she was ready."
"And you," the Marquis enquired, with questioning sympathy, "were perhaps bored?"
"Not bored, exactly—rather irritated! I think I am like you, in some respects, father," Letitia went on, smoothing out her gloves. "I prefer to find my intimates within the circle of our own relatives and connections. A person like Mr. Thain in some way disturbs me."