In connection with the undercurrent of life at Plasencia, another little scene is perhaps worth recording.
“By the way, Guy,” said Rory, one morning they were sitting in the billiard-room, “How are Uncle Roger and Aunt May getting on in Pau?”
“Oh, same old thing—mother plays croquet and goes to the English Church, and father plays golf and goes to the English Club. Sometimes they motor over to Biarritz to lunch with friends—and that’s about all!”
“Well, and a jolly good life too! That’s how I’ll spend the winter when I’m old, only I won’t go to Pau, I’ll go to Nice—there’s a better casino. And what’s more, I’ll drag you there, Guy. It would do him a lot of good, wouldn’t it, Miss Lane?” and Rory grinned at Teresa, who, staring at Guy critically through narrowed eyes, said: “I don’t think he’ll need any dragging. I can see him when he’s old—an extremely mondain figure in white spats, constantly drinking tea with duchesses, and writing his memoirs.”
Guy looked at her suspiciously—Mallock, certainly, drank tea with duchesses and wrote his memoirs; not a bad writer, Mallock! But probably Teresa despised him; Swinburne had been a dapper mondain figure in his youth—what did she mean exactly?
“Poor old Guy!” laughed Rory, “I can see him, too—a crusty old Tory, very severe on the young and their idiotic poetry.... I expect you’re a violent Socialist, Miss Lane, ain’t you?”
Foolish, conventional young man, going round sticking labels on every one! Well, so she was labelled “a Socialist,” and that meant “high-browed,” and undesirable; But why on earth did she mind?
Concha was looking at her with rather a curious little smile. She sometimes had an uncomfortable feeling that Concha was as good at reading her thoughts as she was as reading Concha’s.