Mrs. Adrian, when Lion had, on the second or third occasion of his rudeness to her visitor, been turned out of the room, suggested that the dog had been brought up among low people, and had low people’s natural antipathy to gentlefolks.
Ruth did not take up the challenge on Gertie’s behalf. She knew that her mother had really grown fond of the child, and that she could no more help saying spiteful things occasionally than Lion could help growling. In both cases ‘it was their nature to.’
Gurth played his cards so well and grew so rapidly in favour with the Adrians that he soon felt emboldened to allow his feelings for Ruth to become gradually apparent.
Ruth was the last person to perceive the impression she had made, and it was forced upon her by a little conversation which is worth repeating.
One evening, when the Adrians were alone, and after Gertie had gone to bed, something brought up Gurth’s name, and then Marston’s.
‘They’re not to be named in the same breath,’ said Mrs. Adrian, looking Ruth full in the face. ‘Mr. Egerton’s a man that any girl might be glad to marry. I wonder he hasn’t been snapped up long ago.’
‘Lion would have snapped him up once or twice if we had let him,’ said Mr. Adrian with a smile.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, John; you know what I mean. Look how he sits on his chair. Like a gentleman. As to Mr. Marston, I never see him tilting the dining-room chairs back but I expect to see the legs come off. He’d ruin the furniture in a decent house in a month.’
Ruth laughed, Marston had offended her mother mortally by his habit of sitting with his chair tilted.
‘You may laugh, Ruth,’ continued the old lady; ‘but if ever you have a house of your own you’ll know what it is to see your dining-room suite going to pieces before your very eyes. People that can’t sit in chairs like a Christian oughtn’t to come into respectable houses. I’m sure I expect to see him sit on the table and put his legs up the chimney some day.’