'Yes,' she answered, with eyelids lifted softly to thank him for his concern in so humble a person.
'You look a little pale,' he said.
She coloured like a sea-water shell. 'I am inclined to paleness by nature.'
Her uncle disturbed them. Lunch was ready. He apologized for the absence of Mrs. Markland, a maternal aunt of Constance, who kept house for them. Quintin Manx fell upon the meats, and then upon the Minister. Dacier found himself happily surprised by the accession of an appetite. He mentioned it, to escape from the worrying of his host, as unusual with him at midday: and Miss Asper, supporting him in that effort, said benevolently: 'Gentlemen should eat; they have so many fatigues and troubles.' She herself did not like to be seen eating in public. Her lips opened to the morsels, as with a bird's bill, though with none of the pecking eagerness we complacently observe in poultry.
'But now, I say, positively, how about that article?' said Quintin.
Dacier visibly winced, and Constance immediately said 'Oh! spare us politics, dear uncle.'
Her intercession was without avail, but by contrast with the woman implicated in the horrible article, it was a carol of the seraphs.
'Come, you can say whether there's anything in it,' Dacier's host pushed him.
'I should not say it if I could,' he replied.
The mild sweetness of Miss Asper's look encouraged him.