"N-no; apparently not."
"He's not ill? O, Arthur, he's not ill?"
"Not in the least, Annie,--there's not the least occasion for you to manifest any uneasiness." Lord Caterham's voice was becoming very hard and his face very rigid. "Mr. Ludlow's return to town was delayed in order that he might enjoy the pleasures of his honeymoon in the Isle of Wight."
"His what?"
"His honeymoon; he informs me that he is just married."
"Married? Geoff married? Who to? What a very extraordinary thing! Who is he married to?"
"He has not reposed sufficient confidence in me to acquaint me with the lady's name, probably guessing rightly that I was not in the least curious upon the point, and that to know it would not have afforded me the slightest satisfaction."
"No, of course not; how very odd!" That was all Annie Maurice said, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes looking straight before her.
"What is very odd?" said Caterham, in a harsh voice. "That Mr. Ludlow should get married? Upon my honour I can't see the eccentricity. It is not, surely, his extreme youth that should provoke astonishment, nor his advanced age, for the matter of that. He's not endowed with more wisdom than most of us to prevent his making a fool of himself. What there is odd about the fact of his marriage I cannot understand."
"No, Arthur," said Annie, very quietly, utterly ignoring the querulous tone of Caterham's remarks; "very likely you can't understand it, because Mr. Ludlow is a stranger to you, and you judge him as you would any other stranger. But if you'd known him in the old days when he used to come up to us at Willesden, and papa was always teasing him about being in love with the French teacher at Minerva House, a tall old lady with a moustache; or with the vicar's daughter, a sandy-haired girl in spectacles; and then poor papa would laugh,--O, how he would laugh!--and declare that Mr. Ludlow would be a bachelor to the end of his days. And now he's married, you say? How very, very strange!"