Again Eleanor looked keenly at her friend, and was again satisfied at May's appearance.
'It is strange that a man like that,' said May, 'should never have married; so far as one can judge, he has all the qualifications for making a woman happy.'
'There is, is there not,' said Eleanor, 'some story about him, some romantic adventure of his youth, which soured his disposition and brought on him that cynicism which men are always talking of but which I in vain have tried to discover?'
'He is not, I imagine, so cynical or so hard as he was,' said May. 'Mr. Eardley, who came to see me once or twice, told me he had never seen a man so much changed, and wondered to what influence the alteration could be ascribed.'
'Probably to longer life and greater experience,' said Eleanor demurely.
'I doubt that very much,' said May, with a smile. 'In default of some more powerful motive, Sir Nugent's nature would remain stubborn to the last. However, probably longer life has something to do with the other part of the question which we were discussing. It may be that most girls would think him too old for a husband.'
'That would not be the verdict of any girl with a particle of common sense, I should think,' said Eleanor. 'I know comparatively very little of him, and yet even I have seen him at times when he has thrown off the air of reserve which he habitually wears, and been as young as anybody present.'
May marked the eager manner and quick tone in which these words were said, and at once drew her own conclusions.
'I think, then, I will ask Sir Nugent down,' she said; 'running the risk of his being bored by us all. If, as it seems, he has taken to Mr. Chadwick, he can at least always find with him a refuge from female society.'
Eleanor did not reply to this last sentence. Perhaps she had her own reasons for thinking, or at all events for hoping, that from certain female society Nugent Uffington would make no attempt to escape. From the time of that conversation Eleanor was brighter, and evidently happier than she had been during the whole of her stay at Woodburn.