"Not at all."
"You like the Jews?"
"Those I know I like."
"Not many Christians have the good sense and the good heart of Arthur Abner. Now go and eat. Come back to me when you've done. I hope you are hungry. Ask the butler for the wine you prefer."
She had not anticipated the enrolment in her household of a man so young and good-looking. These were qualifications for Cupid's business, which his unstrained self-possession accentuated to a note of danger to her chicks, because she liked the taste of him. Her grand-daughter Philippa was in the girl's waxen age; another, Beatrice, was coming to it. Both were under her care; and she was a vigilant woman, with an intuition and a knowledge of sex. She did not blame Arthur Abner for sending her a good-looking young man; she had only a general idea that tutors in a house, and even visiting tutors, should smell of dust and wear a snuffy appearance. The conditions will not always insure the tutors from foolishness, as her girl's experience reminded her, but they protect the girl.
"Your name is Weyburn; your father was an officer in the army, killed on the battle-field, Arthur Abner tells me," was her somewhat severely-toned greeting to the young tutor on his presenting himself the second time.
It had the sound of the preliminary of an indictment read in a Court of
Law.
"My father died of his wounds in hospital," he said.
"Why did you not enter the service?"
"Want of an income, my lady."