“You cannot possibly have met them,” he said, “or your discrimination would have shown you that, whether friends of mine or not, they are very different from what you have evidently imagined them.”
“Why, you seem quite vexed with me,” said Lady Marth, trying to carry it off lightly. “How can I be expected to know all about the good people on the Green, or to have guessed by instinct that the Derwents had anything to do with you?”
“Lady Hebe found out enough to make her show them all the kindness in her power,” he replied. “Lady Harriot called on them, poor dear soul, meaning to do her best, and Mrs Harrowby surely mentioned them to you?”
“Perhaps she did,” replied Lady Marth carelessly; “but the vicar’s wife, you know, Sir Adam, doesn’t count in that way. It’s her rôle, or she thinks it is, to ignore all class distinctions.”
“In this case there were none to ignore,” said Sir Adam, still more frigidly.
“I don’t say there were,” she replied. “Of course not with friends of yours. But how was I to know that? Now, you’re not to be vexed with me, for you’ve really no cause to be.” But as she said this, a certain afternoon in the vicarage drawing-room recurred to her memory—a beautiful, fair-haired girl, standing near her, a faint flush rising to her face as she—Lady Marth—drew herself back with words, to say the least, neither courteous nor amiable. Her tone to Sir Adam softened still more. “Of course,” she continued, “I shall be more than delighted to pay any attention in my power to Mrs Derwent—that is to say, if you wish it.”
“Thank you,” he answered, gratified, in spite of himself, by her evident sincerity. “I will tell you more about them some other time. I may see Hebe after dinner, may I not?” he went on. “Archie said something about her wishing it.”
“Oh yes,” replied Lady Marth. “She is counting upon it, I know. If you will follow us into the drawing-room a little before the other men, I will take you to her. She is really quite well in herself, but we daren’t risk any glare of light for her as yet. Isn’t it nice to see poor Norman looking so much happier?”
“Yes; of the two, I think he does more credit to their travels than young Dunstan,” Sir Adam replied thoughtlessly.
He regretted the remark as soon as he had made it, but a glance at Lady Marth’s face reassured him. She was in utter unconsciousness that Archie Dunstan and Blanche Derwent had ever met.