“He is shut up with my father in the library; and there are reasons for supposing that his business requires the consumption of a considerable quantity of soda and whisky. The major, I am afraid, will be a trifle difficult to get on with this evening. As a matter of fact, he isn’t used to it, though he was, one understands, rather popular at the mess table. That’s a trifle significant, considering what is said about us, isn’t it, Mr. Ainslie?”
“Ah,” said Ainslie, “we’re a maligned people; and the pity of it is that it’s our own people who give us away. You don’t believe in doing that in the Colonies?”
“No,” laughed Ida, “we are rather fond of making it clear that we are quite above the average as a people. However, it’s excusable, perhaps, for, after all, there’s a germ of truth in it. I think Miss Kinnaird will agree with that.”
Arabella leaned a little farther over her chair.
“I’ll leave you to talk it out with Mr. Ainslie. But there’s another matter. Does Miss Weston recall to you anybody we have met?”
“No,” said Ida, with a somewhat incautious decisiveness. “If you mean our camp-packer, she certainly does not.”
Arabella understood this to mean that any comparison of the kind suggested would be derogatory to the packer, which was somewhat significant.
“Well,” she said, “there is at least a physical resemblance, and though I haven’t probed the matter very deeply, yet I’ve not abandoned it.”
Then she laughed and turned to Ainslie.
“You and Miss Stirling can thrash out the question.”