There was a slight pause. Sir Richard set down his empty wine-glass, and flicked with one long finger the petals of a flower in a bowl on the table. “This year, next year, sometime—or never, my dear Louisa.”
“I am very sure she considers herself as good as plighted to you,” Louisa said.
Sir Richard was looking down at the flower under his hand, but at this he raised his eyes to his sister’s face, in an oddly keen, swift look. “Is that so?”
“How should it be otherwise? You know very well that Papa and Lord Saar designed it so years ago.”
The lids veiled his eyes again. “How medieval of you!” sighed Sir Richard.
“Now, don’t, pray, take me up wrongly, Richard! If you don’t like Melissa, there is no more to be said. But you do like her—or if you don’t, at least I never heard you say so! What Mama and I feel—and George, too—is that it is time and more that you were settled in life.”
A pained glanced reproached Lord Trevor. “Et tu, Brute?” said Sir Richard.
“I swear I never said so!” declared George, choking over his Madeira. “It was all Louisa. I dare say I may have agreed with her. You know how it is, Richard!”
“I know,” agreed Sir Richard, sighing. “You too, Mama?”
“Oh Richard, I live only to see you happily married, with your children about you!” said Lady Wyndham, in trembling tones.