“Your brother has come,” he said eagerly, “my Lord Spencer; I have just had the honor to wait upon him. Very proud I am too, my lady, for is he not one of the new lights of the party, and one of the most learned young men in Britain?”
She shrugged her white shoulders laughing.
“He is all that, Sir Edward,” she said, “and more—much more,” she added with a droll expression of despair.
“Much learning doth make him mad,” said Mr. Trevor smiling. “I have known such cases on the Continent.”
“’Tis instructive,” Betty admitted, smiling at Sir Edward’s boyish face, “but ’tis dry.”
“Give me a fine horse, a fine woman, and fine music, and all the books in England might burn,” said Benham.
“Oh!” said Lady Betty, and she lifted her brows with a contemptuous glance.
“In sequence, according to your valuation of them, sir,” remarked Mr. Trevor, with a cool smile, “a poor compliment to the sex. But music expresses something—something only—of the beauty and charm of a fair woman.”
“Sing to us, do!” interposed the countess, “I despise comparisons.”
“To hear is to obey, my lady,” he replied, beginning at once to play the sad wild air that made her start and change color.