"Good heavens, Belinda! But the idea is preposterous."
"Yes; I knew you'd say so at first. That's why I didn't want to say anything about it just yet awhile."
"But allow me to say that, if you had any such idea in your head, it was only proper that it should be mentioned to me."
"Well, I have mentioned it."
Lord Seely clasped his hands behind his back, and walked up and down the room in a stiff, abrupt kind of march. At length he stopped opposite to her ladyship, who was assiduously soothing Fido; Fido having, for some occult reason, become violently exasperated by his master's walking about the room.
"Why, in the first place——do send that brute away," said his lordship, sharply.
"There! he's quiet now. Good Fido! Good boy! Mustn't bark and growl at master. Yes; you were saying——?"
"I was saying that, in the first place, Castalia must be ten years older than this boy."
"About that, I should say. But if they don't mind that, I don't see what it matters to us."
"And he has not any means, nor any prospect of earning any, that I can see."