"Take care, Mademoiselle!" he said, gasping a little. "I don't know why you allow yourself these franchises!"
"Because I am interested in you—rather. Why won't the neighbourhood call on you—why do you have disreputable people to stay with you? It is all so foolish!" she said, with childish and yet passionate emphasis. "You needn't do it!"
Meryon had turned rather white.
"When you grow a little older," he said severely, "you will know better than to believe all the gossip you hear. I choose the friends that suit me—and the life too. My friends are mostly artists and actors—they are quite content to be excluded from Upcote society—so am I. I don't gather you are altogether in love with it yourself."
He looked at her mockingly.
"If it were only Sarah—or mamma," she said doubtfully.
"You mean I suppose that Meynell—your precious guardian—my very amiable cousin—allows himself to make all kinds of impertinent statements about me. Well, you'll understand some day that there's no such bad judge of men as a clergyman. When he's not ignorant he's prejudiced—and when he's not prejudiced he's ignorant."
A sudden remorse swelled in Hester's mind.
"He's not prejudiced!—he's not ignorant! How strange that you and he should be cousins!"
"Well, we do happen to be cousins. And I've no doubt that you would like me to resemble him. Unfortunately I can't accommodate you. If I am to take a relation for a model, I prefer a very different sort of person—the man from whom I inherited Sandford. But Richard, I am sure, never approved of him either."