“I want to go too,” she said quietly; “but I must see Lady Hebe for one moment, first.”
“Don’t hurry,” said Mr Dunstan; “she is saying good-bye to those girls now, and she is looking towards you. It will do Lady Marth good to be kept waiting for once, so pray be as deliberate as you like. No one asked her to come here, unless—unless, indeed, I did so myself. I don’t— She is quite odious, sometimes,” he went on, disconnectedly, looking, for once, not equal to the occasion.
Blanche lifted her serene eyes to his face.
“Did you think she was rude to me?” she said. “Please don’t mind. She does not know me, or anything about me, so what does it matter? I should mind if any one I knew or cared about was disagreeable or unkind; but when it is a perfect stranger it is quite different.”
The young man looked at her with a mixture of admiration and perplexity. Had she not taken in the covert impertinence of Lady Marth’s speech?
He smiled a little as he replied. “You are very philosophical and very sensible, Miss Derwent,” he said. “But still, I am afraid you must think English people have very bad manners.”
“I have not seen many; I can scarcely judge,” she said. “But I should not like to say so. I think Lady Hebe and that old lady, Mrs Selwyn, and Mrs Harrowby—oh, and others I could name—have charming manners.”
“Why don’t you include my aunt—by marriage only—at Alderwood?” he said maliciously.
Blanche laughed a little.
“Some people can’t help being awkward, I suppose,” she said. “She means to be kind, I think.”