'Surely this is severe?' urged Colville, gently.
'Men, like women, cannot be too wary of chance medley acquaintances,' persisted Blanche, cresting up her handsome head.
'I have somewhere read,' said her mamma, who was now au fait of the whole episode, 'that men may study women as they do a barometer, but only understand them on a subsequent day.'
'It may be so,' said Colville, 'but what then?'
'I agree with Blanche in her views of these Wellwood girls. People may do much in town that they cannot do in country places, where everyone's actions are, as it were, under a microscope; where every trivial movement is known, freely commented upon, and often exaggerated by menials and the vulgar. Thus,' continued Lady Dunkeld, with a very set expression on her usually placid face, 'I am not sure—nay, I am quite certain—it does not agree with what society calls les convenances, visiting these young girls.'
'In some respects you are right,' replied Colville, colouring with real pain; 'but I was not visiting. I only met Miss Wellwood near the old burying-ground—moreover, they are ladies, she and her sister, perfect ladies!' he urged, with a gleam in his dark eyes, which Lady Dunkeld was not slow to detect.
'But living so eccentrically alone?'
'So independently, let us say,' he continued.
'Captain Colville is quite their champion,' said Blanche, with a laugh that was not very genuine; and then the subject dropped.
Lady Dunkeld exchanged a quick glance with her daughter, and slowly fanned herself with an inscrutable expression on her certainly aristocratic face, and adopting the imperturbable placidity generally peculiar to her class and style.