He was obliged to laugh. “I doubt if he would have the smallest notion of anything less violent than a blow from a cudgel. How you can tolerate the fellow!”
“I told you that I was not at all nice in my ideas. Come, don’t let us talk of him! I have sworn an oath to heaven not to quarrel with you today.”
“You amaze me! Why?”
“Don’t be such an ape!” she begged. “I want to drive your grays, of course!”
He took his place beside her in the curricle and nodded to the groom to stand away from the grays’ heads. “Oh, that! When we are clear of the town, you shall do so.”
“That,” said Sophy, “is a remark calculated, I daresay, to make me lose my temper at the outset. I shall not do it, however.”
“I don’t doubt your skill,” he said.
“A handsome admission. It cost you an effort to make it, perhaps, and that makes it the more valuable. But the roads are so good in England that not much skill is required. You should see some of the tracks in Spain!”
“Deliberate provocation, Sophy!” said Mr. Rivenhall. She laughed, disclaimed, and began to ask him about hunting.
Once beyond the narrow streets he let his horses lengthen their stride, and overtook, and passed the landaulet. Miss Wraxton was seen to be conversing amicably with Mr. Fawnhope, while Cecilia was looking bored. The reason was explained by Hubert, who rode beside the curricle for a little way and disclosed that the subject under discussion was Dante’s Inferno. “And this I will say for Fawnhope!” he added handsomely. “He knows that Italian stuff much better than your Eugenia, Charles, and can go on at it for hours, never at a loss! What’s more, there’s another fellow, called Uberti, or some such thing, and he knows him too. Sad stuff, if you ask me, but Talgarth — I say, he’s a bang-up fellow, isn’t he? — says he’s devilish well read. Cecilia don’t like it above half. Jupiter, I should laugh if Eugenia were to cut her out with the poet!”