“With her brother, I fancy.”
“Oh! yes, to be sure—I saw him here. I forgot. But Alice is very independent, just now, of his protection,” and she laughed.
“How do you mean?”
“Oh! Lord Wynderbroke, of course, takes care of her while she's here. I saw them walking about together, so happy! I suppose it is all settled.”
“About Lord Wynderbroke?” suggested Longcluse, with a gentle carelessness, as if he did not care a farthing—as if a dreadful pain had not at that moment pierced his heart.
“Yes, Lord Wynderbroke. Why, haven't you heard of that?”
“Yes, I believe—I think so. I am sure I have heard something of it; but one hears so many things, one forgets, and I don't know him. What kind of man is he?”
“He's hard to describe; he's not disagreeable, and he's not dull; he has a great deal to say for himself about pictures, and the East, and the Crimea, and the opera, and all the people at all the courts in Europe, and he ought to be amusing; but I think he is the driest person I ever talked to. And he is really good-natured; but I think him much more teasing than the most ill-natured man alive, he's so insufferably punctual and precise.”
“You know him very well, then?” said Longcluse, with an effort to contribute his share to the talk.
“Pretty well,” said the young lady, with just a slight tinge flushing her haughty cheek. “But no one, who has been a week in the same house with him, could fail to see all that.”