And when, after having a few glasses of wine together, and a cigar in the smoking-room, they rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room, the obnoxious subject was again resumed by Jerry and his mother, somewhat apart from Bevil Goring, who drew a seat near the piano, over the keys of which Miss Wilmot was gracefully idling, or affecting an andante of Beethoven.
'The invitations for the ball in your honour, my dear boy, are all issued,' said Lady Julia; 'and every one has accepted—only think of that! Every one, and here is the list.'
He scanned it, and saw many familiar names that stood high in the county, and said, with a twirl of his moustache,
'I don't see the name of Chevenix here.'
'Chevenix again!' said his mother, with a cloudy eye and curling lip; 'the lawyer man?'
'Who else, mother dear? Now, don't be absurd. There is no other Chevenix in all Hampshire. They must be asked—he and his daughter.'
'The girl is said to look well in a drawing-room.'
'She looks lovely!' exclaimed Jerry, incautiously.
'She was a mere hobbledehoy when you and she used to play at battledore and croquet together.'
'She is, I repeat, a very lovely woman now, mother,' continued Jerry, with enthusiasm.