“I wish to know, the Kincton Knoxes, aren’t they a leading people rather, in their part of the world?”
“Oh, dear, yes. Kincton is one of the best places in the county,” ejaculated Trevor, who being a kinsman, bore a handsome testimony.
“And—and—the young lady, Miss Clara Knox, she, I suppose, is—is admired?”
“So she is, by Jove—I know, I admired her awfully—so admired that the fellows won’t let one another marry her, by Jove!—he, he, he! Very fine girl, though, and I believe her father, or rather her mother, will give her a lot of money.”
Miss Perfect looked on the table, not pleased, very thoughtfully, and Vane Trevor looked down at her foreshortened countenance listlessly.
“And you spoke, you remember, of an idea that—that in fact it would end in a marriage,” resumed Miss Perfect.
“Did I really say? well, but you won’t mention what I say, upon my honour, and quite seriously, I should not wonder a bit. It is not altogether what she said, you know, Mrs. Kincton Knox, I mean, though that was as strong as you could well imagine—but her manner; I know her perfectly, and when she wishes you to understand a thing—and I assure you that’s what she wished me to suppose—and I, really I can’t understand it; it seems to me perfectly incomprehensible, like a sort of infatuation, for she’s one of the sharpest women alive, Mrs. Kincton Knox; but, by Jove, both she and Clara, they seem to have quite lost their heads about Maubray. I never heard anything like it, upon my honour.”
And Trevor, who had by this time quite shaken off the chill of his suspense, laughed very hilariously, till Aunt Dinah said, with some displeasure—
“For the life of me, I can’t see anything ridiculous in it. William Maubray is better connected than they, and he’s the handsomest young man I ever beheld in my life; and if she has money enough of her own, for both, I can’t see what objection or difficulty there can be.”
“Oh! certainly—certainly not on those grounds; only what amused me was, there’s a disparity; you know—she’s, by Jove! she is—she’s five years older, and that’s something.”