"A distant cousin. He stayed with us in the autumn just before he went out to India. He passed into the Indian Civil Service from Oxford at the top of the list."
"Praiseworthy young man."
"Oh! but you would like him, Henrietta," the girl declared. "He is very clever and very entertaining too when"—
"When?"
"Well, when he doesn't tease too much. He has an immense amount to talk about, and very good manners."
"Also, when he does not tease too much?—And you like him?"
"I don't quite know," Damaris slowly said. "He did not stay with us long enough for me to make up my mind. And then other things happened which rather put him out of my head. He was a little conceited, perhaps, I thought."
"Not unnaturally, being at the top of the pass list. But though other things put him out of your head, he writes to you?"
In the pussy-warmth within her muff, Mrs. Frayling became sensible that Damaris' hand grew unresponsive, at once curiously stiff and curiously limp.
"He has written twice. Once on the voyage out, and again soon after he arrived. The—the second letter reached me this week."