“Good gracious, Theodora, if you are old-fashioned, what ought I to be? And I should think Mr. King very foolish to walk along a country road in his Bond Street get-up on Sunday or any other day.”
“Oh, it is I who am foolish!” retorted Miss Theodora. “I suppose the clergyman didn’t mind; he gets too much used to that sort of thing nowadays. But in my young days, a vicar would have felt himself insulted if any member of the upper classes had appeared at service in such a costume.”
Even the colonel, who was presumably accustomed to his daughter’s vagaries, was astonished at her acrimonious tones. Clifford, who was hardly prepared with an answer, was much relieved when she made an excuse of preparing dinner to leave him with her father.
As the spare figure, with its curiously old-fashioned dress of fifteen years back, lifted up its skirts with both hands, in the ancient manner, and disappeared into the house, the colonel laughed silently.
“I need not apologize for my daughter, I suppose,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. “Women fossilize more quickly than we do, you know.”
“I really began to feel rather frightened,” said Clifford. “I was speculating as to what would happen if I should let slip the fact that I hadn’t been to church at all this morning.”
“She knew that as well as we did, I imagine,” said the colonel. “The vicar gave us an hour and ten minutes of it this morning, so I suppose she felt bitter.”
“I don’t see why she should have vented her feelings on me,” murmured Clifford.
But the old gentleman suddenly stopped short. He had been walking on with Clifford in the direction of the Blue Lion.
“I have it!” he exclaimed with conviction. “It’s on account of Nell Claris, her little protégée. My daughter is very indignant about the way in which the girl has been persecuted lately, and I suppose she thinks that you have had something to do with it.”