“None of my horses is at all suitable for you to drive,” he replied.
“Well, never mind!” said Sophy. “I shall prefer to have my own phaeton and pair.”
“Have you the smallest notion what you would have to pay for a well-matched pair?” he demanded.
“No, tell me! I thought not above three or four hundred pounds?”
“A mere trifle! Your father, of course, would have not the least objection to your squandering three or four hundred pounds on a pair of horses!”
“Not the least, unless I allowed myself to be taken in like a goose, and bought some showy-looking animal for ever throwing out a splint, or a high-stepper found to be touched in the wind at the end of a mile.”
“I advise you to wait until he returns to England, then. He will no doubt choose you the very thing!” was all Mr. Rivenhall would say.
Rather to his surprise, Sophy appeared to take this in perfectly good part, for she made no comment, and almost immediately desired him to tell her the name of the street they were driving down. She did not refer again to the phaeton and pair, and Mr. Rivenhall, realizing that she was merely a little spoiled and in need of a set down, palliated the severe snub he had dealt her by pointing out one or two places of interest which they passed and asking her a few civil questions about the scenery of Portugal. Arrived at Temple Bar, he drew up before the narrow entrance to Hoare’s Bank and would have accompanied her inside had she not declined his escort, saying that he would do better to walk his horses, for she did not know how long she might be detained, and there was a sharp wind blowing. So he waited for her outside; reflecting that however unusual it might be for a young and unattached lady to do business in a bank she could not really come to any harm there. When she reappeared, in about twenty minutes’ time, some senior official of the bank came with her and solicitously handed her up into the curricle. She seemed to be on terms of considerable friendship with this personage, but disclosed, in answer to a somewhat sardonic inquiry made by her cousin as they drove off, that this had been her first meeting with him.
“You surprise me!” said Mr. Rivenhall. “I had supposed he must have dandled you on his knee when you were a baby!”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “He didn’t mention it, at all events. Where do we go now?”