"Oh, I thought she jilted him."
"I daresay it was one or the other; at all events, there was some fracas or other. I believe her mother was—hum, hum—you understand—she couldn't be swallowed by the Kynastons at any price; they must have been thankful to get out of it."
"It looks very bad, her not marrying any one, with all the fuss there has been made over her."
"Yes; even Cissy Hazeldine told me, in confidence, yesterday, she could not try her again next season. It wouldn't do, you know; it would look too much as if she had some object of her own in getting her married. Cissy must find something else for another year. Of course, with a husband, she could sail her own course and make her own way; but a girl can't go on attracting attention with impunity—she gets herself talked about—it is only we married women can do as we like."
"Exactly. Do you suppose that will come to anything?" casting a glance towards the further end of the lawn, where Vera Nevill sat in a low basket-chair, under the shadow of a spreading tulip-tree, whilst a slight boyish figure, stretched at her feet, alternately chewed blades of grass and looked up worshippingly into her face.
"That!" following the direction of her companion's eyes. "Oh dear, no! Denis Wilde is too wideawake to be caught, though he is such a boy! They say she is crazy to get him; everybody else has slipped through her fingers, you see, and he would be better than nothing. Now we are in the last week in July, I daresay she is getting desperate; but young Wilde knows pretty well what he is about, I expect!"
"He seems to admire her."
"Oh, yes, I daresay; those large kind of women do get admired; men look upon them as fine animals. I should not care to be admired in that way, would you?"
"No, indeed! it is disgusting," replied the other, who was fain to conceal the bony corners of her angular figure with a multiplicity of lace ruchings and puffings.
"As to Miss Nevill, she is nothing else. A most material type; why, her waist must be twenty-two inches round!"