"I have lived here always," Lucia answered. "I have never been away more than a week at a time."
"Ah?" interrogatively. "I hope you have not found it dull."
"No," smiling a little. "Not very. You see, I have known nothing gayer."
"There is society enough of a harmless kind here," spoke up Lady Theobald virtuously. "I do not approve of a round of gayeties for young people: it unfits them for the duties of life."
But Capt. Barold was not as favorably impressed by these remarks as might have been anticipated.
"What an old fool she is!" was his polite inward comment. And he resolved at once to make his visit as brief as possible, and not to be induced to run down again during his stay at Broadoaks. He did not even take the trouble to appear to enjoy his evening. From his earliest infancy, he had always found it easier to please himself than to please other people. In fact, the world had devoted itself to endeavoring to please him, and win his—toleration, we may say, instead of admiration, since it could not hope for the latter. At home he had been adored rapturously by a large circle of affectionate male and female relatives; at school his tutors had been singularly indulgent of his faults and admiring of his talents; even among his fellow-pupils he had been a sort of autocrat.
Why not, indeed, with such birthrights and such prospects? When he had entered society, he had met with even more amiable treatment from affectionate mothers, from innocent daughters, from cordial paternal parents, who voted him an exceedingly fine fellow. Why should he bore himself by taking the trouble to seem pleased by a stupid evening with an old grenadier in petticoats and a badly dressed country girl?
Lucia was very glad when, in answer to a timidly appealing glance, Lady Theobald said,—
"It is half-past ten. You may wish us good-night, Lucia."
Lucia obeyed, as if she had been half-past ten herself, instead of nearly twenty; and Barold was not long in following her example.