“Tell me what he is like.”
“Like! Do you mean personally? He is ugly—hideously ugly—especially now that he takes so little care of himself. He goes about in clothes my coachman would decline to wear, and he slouches. I think a man who slouches is detestable.”
“So do I,” I assented. “What a very unpleasant neighbor to have!”
“Oh, that isn’t the worst,” she continued. “He is impossible in every way. He has a brutal temper and a brutal manner. No one could possibly take him for a gentleman. He is cruel and reckless, and he does nothing but loaf. There are things said about him which I should not dare to repeat to you. I feel it deeply; but it is no use disguising the fact. He is an utter and miserable failure.”
“On the whole,” I remarked, resuming my chair, “it is perhaps well that he has not called. I might not like him.”
Lady Naselton’s hard little laugh rang out upon the afternoon stillness. The idea seemed to afford her infinite but bitter amusement.
“Like him, my dear! Why, he would frighten you to death. Fancy any one liking Bruce Deville! Wait until you’ve seen him. He is the most perfect prototype of degeneration in a great family I have ever come in contact with. The worst of it, too, that he was such a charming boy. Why, isn’t that Mr. Ffolliot coming?” she added, in an altogether different tone. “I am so glad that I am going to meet him at last.”
I looked up and followed her smiling gaze. My father was coming noiselessly across the smooth, green turf towards us. We both of us watched him for a moment, Lady Naselton with a faint look of surprise in her scrutiny. My father was not in the least of the type of the ordinary country clergyman. He was tall and slim, and carried himself with an air of calm distinction. His clean-shaven face was distinctly of the intellectual cast. His hair was only slightly grey, was parted in the middle and vigorously mobile and benevolent. His person in every way was faultless and immaculate, from the tips of his long fingers to the spotless white cravat which alone redeemed the sombreness of his clerical attire. I murmured a few words of introduction, and he bowed over Lady Naselton’s hand with a smile which women generally found entrancing.
“I am very glad to meet Lady Naselton,” he said, courteously. “My daughter has told me so much of your kindness to her.”
Lady Naselton made some pleasing and conventional reply. My father turned to me.