"It is of some importance to me—just now."
The last two words rendered him really impatient, and, it may be, spurred him up.
"If we are to take Lucia Gaston as a model," he said, "Lucia Gaston would possibly not have been so complaisant in her demeanor toward our clerical friend."
"Complaisant!" she exclaimed, opening her lovely eyes. "When I was actually plunging about the garden, trying to teach him to play. Well, I shouldn't call that being complaisant."
"Lucia Gaston," he replied, "would not say that she had been 'plunging' about the garden."
She gave herself a moment for reflection.
"That's true," she remarked, when it was over: "she wouldn't. When I compare myself with the Slowbridge girls, I begin to think I must say some pretty awful things."
Barold made no reply, which caused her to laugh a little again.
"You daren't tell me," she said. "Now, do I? Well, I don't think I want to know very particularly. What Lady Theobald thinks will last quite a good while. Complaisant!"
"I am sorry you object to the word," he said.