“Your friend Dawes is doing credit to his bringing up.”
“What do you mean?”
“That infernal villain and reprobate, Dawes. He is fitting himself faster for—” She interrupted him. “Maurice, I wish you would not use such language. You know I dislike it.” She spoke coldly and sadly, as one who knows that remonstrance is vain, and is yet constrained to remonstrate.
“Oh, dear! My Lady Proper! can't bear to hear her husband swear. How refined we're getting!”
“There, I did not mean to annoy you,” said she, wearily. “Don't let us quarrel, for goodness' sake.”
He went away noisily, and she sat looking at the carpet wearily. A noise roused her. She looked up and saw North. Her face beamed instantly. “Ah! Mr. North, I did not expect you. What brings you here? You'll stay to dinner, of course.” (She rang the bell without waiting for a reply.) “Mr. North dines here; place a chair for him. And have you brought me the book? I have been looking for it.”
“Here it is,” said North, producing a volume of 'Monte Cristo'. She seized the book with avidity, and, after running her eyes over the pages, turned inquiringly to the fly-leaf.
“It belongs to my predecessor,” said North, as though in answer to her thought. “He seems to have been a great reader of French. I have found many French novels of his.”
“I thought clergymen never read French novels,” said Sylvia, with a smile.
“There are French novels and French novels,” said North. “Stupid people confound the good with the bad. I remember a worthy friend of mine in Sydney who soundly abused me for reading 'Rabelais', and when I asked him if he had read it, he said that he would sooner cut his hand off than open it. Admirable judge of its merits!”