He laughed, and changed the conversation.
'I heard you young ladies talking a great deal of the Pensildon fête last night,' he said.
'Did you really?' asked Milly; 'you did not appear to be much interested in our conversation.'
'Did I seem distrait? It is a way I have sometimes, Miss Darrell; but I can assure you I can hear two or three conversations at once. I think I heard all that you and the Miss Collingwoods were saying.'
'You are going to Lady Pensildon's on the 31st, I suppose?' Milly said.
'I think not. I think of going abroad for the autumn. I have been rather a long time at Cumber, you know, and I'm afraid the roving mood is coming upon me again. I shall be sorry to go, too, for I had intended to torment you continually about your art studies. You have really a genius for landscape, you know, Miss Darrell; you only want to be goaded into industry now and then by some severe critic like myself. Is your cousin, Mr. Stormont, an artist, by the way?'
'Not at all.'
'That's a pity. He seems a clever young man. I suppose he will be a good deal with you, now that Mr. and Mrs. Darrell have returned?'
'He cannot stay very long at a time. He has the chief position in papa's counting-house.'
'Indeed! He looked a little as if the cares of business weighed upon his spirit.'