"You spend most of the year in visits, don't you?"
"Well, a good deal of it," said Letty.
"Don't you find it dreadfully time-wasting? Does it leave you leisure for any serious occupations at all? I am afraid it would make me terribly idle!"
Mrs. Hawkins laughed, attempting a tone of banter.
Letty put up a small hand to hide a sudden yawn, which, however, was visible enough.
"Would it?" she said, with an impertinence which hardly tried to conceal itself. "Evelyn, do look at that dog. Doesn't he remind you of Mr. Bayley?"
She beckoned to the handsome child of sixteen who had sat on George Tressady's left hand at dinner, and, taking up a pinch of rose-leaves that had dropped from a vase beside her, she flung them at the dog, calling him to her. Instead of going to her, however, the dog slowly curled himself up on the rug, and, laying his nose along his front paws, stared at her steadily with the expression of one mounting guard.
"He never will make friends with you, Letty. Isn't it odd?" said Evelyn, laughing, and stooping to stroke the creature.
"Never mind; other dogs will. Did you see that adorable black Spitz of
Lady Arthur's? She has promised to give me one."
The two cousins fell into a chatter about their county neighbours, mostly rich and aristocratic people, of whom Mrs. Hawkins knew little or nothing. Evelyn Watton, whose instincts were quick and generous, tried again and again to draw the vicar's wife into the conversation. Letty was determined to exclude her. She lay back against the sofa, chatting her liveliest, the whiteness of her neck and cheek shining against the red of the damask behind, one foot lightly crossed over the other, showing her costly little slippers with their paste buckles. She sparkled with jewels as much as a girl may—more, indeed, in Mrs. Hawkins's opinion, than a girl should. From head to foot she breathed affluence, seduction, success—only the seduction was not for Mrs. Hawkins and her like.