Mallard, in his turn, interrupted gruffly.
"Precisely: that I am the wrong man to hold even the position of steward to one so advanced. What have I to do with heiresses and fashionable ladies? I have my work to get on with, and it shall not suffer from the intrusion of idlers."
"I see you direct your diatribe half against Mrs. Lessingham. How has she annoyed you?"
"Annoyed me? You never were more mistaken. It's with myself that I am annoyed."
"On what account?"
"For being so absurd as to question sometimes whether my responsibility doesn't extend beyond stock and share. I ask myself whether Doran—who so befriended me, and put such trust in me, and paid me so well in advance for the duties I was to undertake—didn't take it for granted that I should exercise some influence in the matter of his daughter's education? Is she growing up what he would have wished her to be? And if—"
"Why, it's no easy thing to say what views he had on this subject. The lax man, we know, is often enough severe with his own womankind. But as you have given me no description of what Cecily really is, I can offer no judgment. Wait till I have seen her. Doubtless she fulfils her promise of being beautiful?"
"Yes; there is no denying her beauty."
"As for her modonite, why, Mr. Ross Mallard is a singular person to take exception on that score."
"I don't know about that. When did I say that the modern woman was my ideal?"