“Alicia,” said the Countess, “it was really a most fortunate coincidence our meeting the Baron at St Egbert’s.”
She paused for a reply and looked expectantly at her daughter. It was not the first time in the course of the morning that Lady Alicia had listened to similar observations, and perhaps that was why she answered somewhat listlessly, “Yes, wasn’t it?”
The Countess frowned, and continued with emphasis, “I consider him one of the most agreeable and best informed young men I have ever met.”
“Is he?” said Lady Alicia, absently.
“I wonder, Alicia, you hadn’t noticed it,” her mother observed, severely; “you talked with him most of the afternoon. I should have thought that no observant, well-bred girl would have failed to have been struck with his air and conversation.”
“I—I thought him very pleasant, mamma.”
“I am glad you had so much sense. He is extremely pleasant.”
As Lady Alicia made no reply, the Countess felt obliged to continue his list of virtues herself.
“He is of most excellent family, Alicia, one of the oldest in Bavaria. I don’t remember what I heard his income was in pfennigs, or whatever they measure money by in Germany, but I know that it is more than £20,000 a-year in English money. A very large sum nowadays,” she added, as if £20,000 had grown since she was a girl.
“Yes, mamma.”