"Is Brussels your home, then? Do you live there?" asked Miss Patty, leaning eagerly forward.
May looked up, and perceived all at once that every one was gazing at her. The Miss Pipers' sudden attention to what she was saying had attracted the attention of the others—as one may collect a crowd in the street by fixedly regarding the most familiar object. In her inexperience she feared she had committed some breach of the etiquette proper to be observed at a "grown-up dinner party." Perhaps she ought not to have devoted so much attention to the photographs! She closed the book hurriedly as she answered—
"No, I don't live in Brussels, but papa does—at least, generally."
Mrs. Bransby rose from her chair, and came rather quickly across the room. "My dear," she said, "I want to present our old friend, Major Mitton, to you;" and taking May by the arm, she led her away towards the pianoforte.
Theodore observed this proceeding with a cool smile, and sense of inward triumph. Mrs. Bransby began to understand, then, what a very highly connected young lady this was, and was endeavouring, although a little late, to show her proper attention. Another time Mrs. Bransby would receive his introduction and recommendation with more respect. In the same way, he felt gratification in the eager questions with which Miss Patty plied him. Miss Patty left the millionaire Mr. Bragg in the lurch, and began to catechize Theodore on the subject of the Cheffington family.
That fastidious young gentleman said within himself that the snobbery of these Oldchester people was really too absurd; and mentally resolved to cut a great many of them, as he gained a firmer footing in the best London circles. Nevertheless he did not check Miss Patty's inquiries. On the contrary, he condescendingly gave her a great deal of information about his friends the Dormer-Smiths, the late lamented Dowager, the present Viscount Castlecombe, his two sons, the Honourable George and the Honourable Lucius, as well as some details respecting the more distant branch of the Cheffington family, who had intermarried with the Scotch Clishmaclavers, and were thus, not remotely, connected with the great ducal house of M'Brose.
This was all very well; but Miss Patty was far more interested in getting some information about Captain Cheffington which would identify him with the hero of the Brussels story, than of following the genealogy of the noble head of the family into its remotest ramifications. And, notwithstanding that Theodore was much more reticent about the Captain, she did manage to find out that the latter had lived abroad for many years—chiefly in Belgium—and that his pecuniary circumstances were not flourishing.
"I'm quite convinced it's the same man, Polly," she said afterwards to her sister. And, indeed, all the inquiries they made in Oldchester confirmed this idea. The Simpsons gave anything but a good character of May's absentee parent. And subsequent conversation with Major Mitton elicited the fact that Augustus Cheffington had been looked upon as a "black sheep" even by not very fastidious or strait-laced circles many years ago. The story of the Brussels scandal was not long in reaching the ears of every one in Oldchester who had any knowledge, even by hearsay, of the parties concerned.
Theodore Bransby, who left Oldchester on the Monday following the dinner-party, and spent the intervening Sunday at home, was one of the few in the above-named category who did not hear of it.