“I think there should be more croquet, for one thing,” said young Clintock; “I am usually away, but if I were more here I should go in for a croquet club. You are one of the archers, I think. But depend upon it croquet is the game of the future. It wants writing up, though. One of our best men has written a poem on it, in four cantos;—as good as Pope. I want him to publish it—You never read anything better.”
“I shall study croquet to-morrow. I shall take to it instead of singing.”
“No, no, not that; but do take to croquet. I will send you Jenning’s poem if you like. I have a manuscript copy.”
“Is he a great friend of yours?”
“Well, rather.”
“Oh, if he is only rather, I think I will decline. Or, if you send it to me, will you promise not to catechise me upon it and ask me which part I like best? Because it is not so easy to know a poem without reading it as to know a sermon without listening.”
“Decidedly,” Mrs. Arrowpoint thought, “this girl is double and satirical. I shall be on my guard against her.”
But Gwendolen, nevertheless, continued to receive polite attentions from the family at Quetcham, not merely because invitations have larger grounds than those of personal liking, but because the trying little scene at the piano had awakened a kindly solicitude toward her in the gentle mind of Miss Arrowpoint, who managed all the invitations and visits, her mother being otherwise occupied.
CHAPTER VI.
“Croyez-vous m’avoir humiliée pour m’avoir appris que la terre tourne autour du soleil? Je vous jure que je ne m’en estime pas moins.”
—FONTENELLE: Pluralité des Mondes.