The table laughed. Harding Watton looked particularly amused.
"Egeria was in this neighbourhood last week," he said, addressing Lady Tressady. "Edward rode over to see her. Since then he has joined two new societies, and ordered six new books on the Labour Question."
Edward flushed a little, but went on eating his dinner without any other sign of disturbance.
"If you mean Lady Maxwell," he said good-humouredly, "I can only be sorry for the rest of you that you don't know her."
He raised his handsome head with a bright air of challenge that became him, but at the same time exasperated his mother.
"That woman!" said Mrs. Watton with ponderous force, throwing up her hands as she spoke. Then she turned to Lord Fontenoy. "Don't you regard her as the source of half the mischievous work done by this precious Government in the last two years?" she asked him imperiously.
A half-contemptuous smile crossed Lord Fontenoy's worn face.
"Well, really, I'm not inclined to make Lady Maxwell the scapegoat. Let them bear their own misdeeds."
"Besides, what worse can you say of English Ministers than that they should be led by a woman?" said Mr. Watton, from the bottom of the table, in a piping voice. "In my young days such a state of things would have been unheard of. No offence, my dear, no offence," he added hastily, glancing at his wife.
Letty glanced at George, and put up a handkerchief to hide her own merriment.