"Oh, you ignorant little thing! But I suppose some people would find a charm in all that. Doubtless he does."
"Please do tell me what you mean by a good catch?" I repeated.
She laughed disagreeably.
"A good catch," she said, "is—is—well, let me think—the best fish in the sea, the best trout in the stream, the best—the best—oh, the best of everything; that is, if money means anything, and birth anything, and—charm anything, and the finest house in England anything. That is what a good catch means. Now, perhaps, you understand."
"You think, perhaps, that some girl may like to marry Lord Hawtrey?" I said, after a long pause.
"Some girl will," she exclaimed. "Any girl who is not previously engaged would give her eyes for such a connection."
She looked at me intently.
"But surely," I said, "he is old enough to be a young girl's father?"
"Your childishness oppresses me," said Lady Helen. "I thought he'd be in the Park; that is the true reason why I came out. I wanted to be certain of him to-night. I think we'll go home now. I am anxious for my tea, and the air is turning chilly."
We returned to the house. I was still feeling happy. And this, I had to own to myself, was because of Captain Carbury. I accepted the certain fact, and with a joyful beating of my heart, that he stood between me and my stepmother, that he had placed himself deliberately as a shield between her and me. I remembered, too, that chivalrous, beautiful light in his eyes when he told me that morning that he loved me. Oh, of course, I would not marry for years and years, but it was nice to know that one like Vernon Carbury loved me.