"Olivia prefers to hear it in English," said Miss Wharf, spitefully.
"Quite so, aunt," retorted her niece, her colour rising, "but don't you think we might change the subject. It really isn't very interesting."
"But indeed I think it is," said Lady Jabe smartly, "I come here to plead the cause of poor Chris. His heart is breaking. Your aunt is willing to----"
"But I am not," said Miss Rayner quickly, "so please let us say no more about the matter. Mr. Walker can marry Lotty Dean."
"But she's a grocer's daughter," said Lady Jabe, who was herself the widow of an oil-merchant, "and remember my title."
"Lotty isn't going to marry you, Lady Jabe."
"Nor Chris, if I can help it," said the other grimly.
Miss Wharf was just about to crush Olivia with a particularly disagreeable remark, when the door opened and two gentlemen entered. One was Christopher Walker, a slim, boyish-looking young fellow, in that callow stage of manhood which sees beauty in every woman. The other, who followed, was Miss Pewsey's nephew.
There was nothing immature about him, although he was but twenty eight years of age. Clarence Burgh was tall, thin, dark and had the appearance of a swashbuckler as he swaggered into the room. His black eyes snapped with an unholy light and his speech smacked too much of the Lands at the Back of Beyond, where he had passed the most part of his life. He was an expert rider, and daily rode a bucking squealing, kicking stallion up and down the road, or took long gallops into the country to reduce the fire of the unruly beast. Burgh was bad all through, daring, free, bold, and had a good deal of the untamed savage about him; but he was emphatically a man, and it was this virile atmosphere about him, which caused his withered aunt to adore him. And indeed Miss Wharf admired him also, as did many of the women in Marport. Clarence looked like a buccaneer who would carry a woman off, and knock her down if she objected to his love-making. Women like that sort of dominating lord of the world, and accordingly Mr. Burgh had nothing to complain of, so far as feminine admiration went, during his sojourn in Marport. But he had set his affections on Olivia, and hitherto she had shrunk from him. All the same, brute as he was, she admired him more than she did effeminate Chris Walker, who smacked of the city and of a feather-bed-four-meals-a-day existence.
"Oh," squeaked Miss Pewsey, flying to the hero and clasping him round the neck, "how very, very sweet of you to come."