"She can't be as sorry as I am, or she'd have managed to stay," replied Mrs. Mornington, in her blunt style.
"She has my father to think of. She is never long away from him."
"Why don't he come too?"
"I hope to get him for a week or so before the summer is over. He promises to come and look at my surroundings; but he is very much of a recluse. He lives in his library."
"I dare say he will contrive to come when Philip and I are away on our August holiday. We always take a month on the Continent just to keep us in touch with the outside world, and to remind us that the earth doesn't end on the other side of Salisbury. Do you know why I am giving this dance?"
"I am sure it is from a conscientious motive—to pay your debts. I find that most ladies' hospitalities are founded upon a system of exchange and barter, 'cutlet for cutlet,' as Lady Londonderry called it."
"It is very rude of you to say that—as if women had no real hospitality! No, Mr. Carew, I owe no one anything in the dancing line; and I am not making one evening party pay for a whole year's dinners. I have known that done, I assure you. No, I am turning my house out of windows, and making poor Phil utterly miserable, for the sake of a certain young half-French niece of mine, who is coming to live in this neighbourhood with my brother Bob, her thoroughly English father."
"You mean General Vincent? Some one told me that he was related to you."
"Related? I should think he was related to me! He used to pull my hair—we wore long plaits in those days, don't you know—with a ferocity only possible in an elder brother. Poor dear old Bob! I am monstrously pleased at the idea of having him near me in our old age. He has been tossed and beaten about the world for the last thirty years, at home and abroad, and now he is to enjoy enforced leisure, and the noble income which our country bestows upon a retired lieutenant-general. He has a little money of his own, fortunately, and a little more from his wife; so he will be able to live comfortably at Marsh House—in a very quiet, unpretentious way, bien entendu."
"He is a widower, I conclude?"