“Am I to be biographical?”
“Please.”
“She was the daughter of Lord Saltaire, a West Country magnate. He belonged to the vieille souche. He owned large estates heavily mortgaged. His daughters were educated at home by a governess who, I imagine, was not too highly paid. Probably she knew enough to cut the girls to the Saltaire pattern. All of them married well. The conclusion has been forced upon me that men like the late Henry Chandos fight shy of cleverness in a wife.”
“Am I to infer that Lady Selina is stupid?”
“Heavens—no. What do you call cleverness in a woman?”
Grimshaw considered this. He felt himself to be challenged, and wished to acquit himself adequately. But he had no answer pat to his lip. Indeed, he had never considered the cleverness of women as something to be differentiated from the cleverness of man. But he was quite sure that his own sister might be reckoned clever. And he thought of her as he replied:
“I should expect perception, sympathy, humour, adaptability, and a sound business instinct.”
Pawley chuckled.
“I hope you will find all that in your wife, Grimshaw. If you do, you won’t focus your affections on Chippendale furniture. To return to my lady—she has perception and sympathy up to a point, and unsound business instincts. I have her word for it that she never drew a cheque till she found herself a widow.”
Grimshaw meditated a moment or two before he said tentatively: