"Certainly. I suppose Lord Castlecombe is not likely to be in town at this season?" went on Theodore, raising his tone a little so as to be heard by the others. Constance's playing had now come to an end, and there was a general lowering of voices, occasioned by the cessation of that pianoforte accompaniment.
"I don't know, I'm sure. I don't know where he lives," answered May innocently.
"Ahem! He is at this season, in all probability, at Combe Park, his place in Gloucestershire."
May had never heard of her great-uncle's place in Gloucestershire; but now, when Theodore said the words, her thought flashed through a chain of associations to Mrs. Dobbs's mention of the Castlecombe Arms on the Gloucester Road, kept by "Old Rabbitt," and she blushed as though she had done something to be ashamed of.
"The last time I had the pleasure of seeing your father, he was talking to me about Combe Park," continued Theodore, with a complacent sense of superiority to the rest of the company in these manifestations of familiar intercourse with members of the Castlecombe family. Lord Castlecombe was a very important personage in those parts. As May did not speak, Theodore went on: "Grand old place, Combe Park, isn't it?"
"Is it?" returned May absently. She was looking with great interest at the portrait of a superb lace dress, surmounted by a distorted image of Mrs. Bransby's head and face, which were quite out of focus. But the lace flounces had "come out splendidly," as the photographer remarked. And, if the truth must be told, May admired them greatly.
"Is it?" repeated Theodore, with a little smile. "But you have lived so long abroad, that you are quite a stranger to all these ancestral glories. I hope, however, that you have not the same preference for the Continent that your father has?"
"Oh, I'm sure I should always love England best. But I don't know the most beautiful parts of the Continent—Switzerland or Italy. We were always in Belgium, and Belgium isn't beautiful. At least I don't remember any beautiful country."
Thus May, with perfect simplicity, still turning over the photographs, and all unconscious that the Miss Pipers had simultaneously interrupted their own conversation, and were staring at her.
"No; Belgium is not beautiful—except architecturally," replied Theodore. "But there is very nice society in Brussels, and a pleasant Court, I believe. No doubt that's one reason why Captain Cheffington likes it."