'No doubt the man is clever; all adventurers are clever; and you have sense enough to see that this man is an adventurer—a mere sponge and toady of Maulevrier's.'
'There is nothing of the sponge or the toady in his manner,' protested Lady Lesbia, with a still deeper blush, the warm glow of angry feeling.
'My dear child, what do you know of such people—or of the atmosphere in which they are generated? The sponge and toady of to-day is not the clumsy fawning wretch you have read about in old-fashioned novels. He can flatter adroitly, and feed upon his friends, and yet maintain a show of manhood and independence. I'll wager Mr. Hammond's trip to Canada did not cost him sixpence, and that he hardly opened his purse all the time he was in Germany.'
'If my brother wants the company of a friend who is much poorer than himself, he must pay for it,' argued Lesbia. 'I think Maulevrier is lucky to have such a companion as Mr. Hammond.'
Yet, even while she so argued, Lady Lesbia felt in some manner humiliated by the idea that this man who so palpably worshipped her was too poor to pay his own travelling expenses.
Poets and philosophers may say what they will about the grandeur of plain living and high thinking; but a young woman thinks better of the plain liver who is not compelled to plainness by want of cash. The idea of narrow means, of dependence upon the capricious generosity of a wealthy friend is not without its humiliating influence. Lesbia was barely civil to Mr. Hammond that evening when he praised her singing; and she refused to join in a four game proposed by Maulevrier, albeit she and Mr. Hammond had beaten Mary and Maulevrier the evening before, with much exultant hilarity.
Hammond had been at Fellside nearly a month, and Maulevrier was beginning to talk about a move further northward. There was a grouse moor in Argyleshire which the two young men talked about as belonging to some unnamed friend of the Earl's, which they had thought of shooting over before the grouse season was ended.
'Lord Hartfield has property in Argyleshire,' said the dowager, when they talked of these shootings. 'Do you know his estate, Mr. Hammond?'
'Hammond knows that there is such a place, I daresay,' replied Maulevrier, replying for his friend.
'But you do not know Lord Hartfield, perhaps,' said her ladyship, not arrogantly, but still in a tone which implied her conviction that John Hammond would not be hand-in-glove with earls, in Scotland or elsewhere.