"It's so good of you to be kind to Bob," she said. "Bob's a dear, and he adores me. He says that he's going to live with me always, even when I'm married."
AUSTIN DE VERE. He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs and motor-cars
"Oh!" gasped De Vere. "We were talking about Goby, I think, when dear Bob came in. You'll find him much improved, I'm sure, my dear Lady Penelope. He has read a great deal of Shelley and Keats and Browning with me. He was especially struck with 'Sordello.' I read it to him and he sat with his hand to his forehead taking it all in. And every now and again he said, 'Great Scott!' which is his way of expressing wonderment and admiration. I do not know its origin. I've written to Doctor Murray to ask him if he knows. And Goby, oh, yes, you'll find him improved. I've done my best with him, and I've really struggled hard. Any improvement you notice is, I really believe, under you and Providence, due to me."
And when he went, Penelope sat thinking.
"The poor dear, how nicely he took the bulldog bites and the howling of the retriever. I think—I think I could almost love him!"
And that afternoon and evening she saw Bramber and Carteret Williams and Jimmy Carew and Gordon, and they were all most marvellously improved. Bramber was alert and bright, and began to show that he had some ambition in him, and, if he did not tell Penelope his exact mind about Plant, he did show some little appreciation of the American's qualities.
"Associating with him has done you good," said Pen. "I see it has. You lived far too much for yourself, Lord Bramber. I cannot endure selfishness."
"I'm not selfish any more, I think," said Bramber. "I rather like Plant. He seems a man, take him all around. He is abrupt, perhaps, and brutal. I own I've found him trying, and he says things one finds it hard to forgive."
"Yes, he told me," said Pen, delightedly. "Oh, he told me he said you ought to be beaten severely, and he said you took it very nicely. Did you?"